Return of the Enderlord CANCELLED
by Irondil
Summary: The server has enjoyed near 100 years of peace. But now a darkness is spreading from the mountains at the centre of the world. The grey army has been spotted in the plains and villages are being decimated. Has the Enderlord returned? This story is currently cancelled, and is being reworked into another story called The Hardcore Journals: Dragonscale
1. Maffis

The player was lagging behind him again, not due to server lag, but due to the fact that Maffis was on horseback and the newspawn was not. Every now and again Maffis would have to stop and wait for him to catch up, or he would ride circles around him whenever he was feeling bored. Sometimes the player would slow down to look at some hill or ruin in the distance and Maffis would need to shout at him to get moving again.

Maffis had found the newly spawned player, who had been named Durgey by the server's random name generator, just north of the South Tip. From what he could tell the new player knew little to nothing about the server other than its harder than hardcore nature. When he had first come across him, Maffis had wanted little to do with him; his duty did not entail watching after newspawns. But when the player spoke to him in his childish voice Maffis felt bad about leaving such a young player alone in such a harsh world. It was true that he was likely too young to be playing on such a server in the first place, but he was already in it and Maffis could not let him die.

The South Tip was a sanctuary for Maffis, it was his home and his place in the world, but it was no place for a newspawn like Durgey. Neither were the plains of the south, a terrible place for an inexperienced player. Even a player well seasoned at the regular game of Minecraft would be no match for this place, this empty land of long stretches of flat with nothing but shallow hills and a few old ruins scattered about.

The lands south of the counties of Breezelyn and Dvigland had no local rulers, it was considered part of the king's kingdom but had none of the king's protection. As such it had become a haven for bandits, especially in the last ten years. The bandits, glorified griefers, had destroyed the remaining towns in the area, all except for the _fortress_ of South Tip. From then on the inhabitants of South Tip took it upon themselves to scour their lands of the bandits. Maffis was one of these bandit hunters.

Yet now, even though he was tasked with tracking and eliminating the griefing scum, Maffis was leading a young boy to a town out of his jurisdiction. It had been many years since he'd been north of the area known as the Bandit Lands, but now he was and he was slightly nervous about it. He wasn't sure if people would remember him or not, and if they did he was not sure what he would do about it.

Durgey was humming the same tune that he had been humming for days. The random skin generator had given him the appearance of a miner with dirty white clothes and a dirty pale face with dark hair. Maffis had offered to give him some armor he had taken from bandits, but the little boy refused them because they had been dyed a shade of pink; though Maffis would have called it tea rose.

When Maffis decided to take Durgey to safety he had used the boy's appearance as inspiration. In this world he would need to find a job, and what better job was there for an inexperienced Minecraft player than simply digging and looking for ores and that sort of thing. Shorebreeze was, along with being a fishing town, a major mining town on the eastern shore of Breezelyn. He had promised to take Durgey there and, despite the boy's initial whining about needing to have a career in Minecraft, agreed to go after Maffis had explained the workings of the server's economy.

"So I'll get paid in gold nuggets then?" asked Durgey whilst Maffis encircled him on his pure black horse.

"Likely not. Any gold that is made from your mining will be used to pay the king's taxes, which he collects at the beginning of each year. You'll be paid in housing and food. They are likely the same things you would buy with the gold anyway, so it's a fair trade."

"What?! But what if I want to buy something cool like a diamond sword or a really pretty horse?" asked the boy and Maffis could not help but chuckle. "What's so funny?"

"The only way you'll see anything diamond is if the king himself was to come to town. Durgey, this server is old. Very old. All the diamonds have been mined and used or lost. The world is big, yes, but we can only take so much from it before it goes dry. We've even started to find iron scarce. Leather and stone are the only reliable materials to make armor and weapons and tools now," said Maffis. "But you may get a horse some day. If you work hard enough, the mine foreman might take notice of you, give you a promotion, and then who knows where you'll go in this world."

"Oh man, that doesn't sound like fun," whined Durgey.

"To most it isn't, I suppose. But you must remember that there are thousands of players on this server, on this continent alone there were eight thousand at the last census. If they were allowed to run around and do whatever they wanted, the world would be filled with crude dirt huts and nerdpoles and pyramids of flowing lava. Laws needed to be made to stop those things, and with those laws came responsibilities that players must uphold. They must find their place in society, and to do that you must start out small."

"Did you start out small Maffis?" the boy asked and Maffis grunted. He had started out just as small as Durgey, that was true, but that was a lifetime ago and he wanted to forget about all of that. For now he was Maffis of South Tip, bandit hunter and newspawn escort to safer lands. "Oh, the path is changing! What does that mean, Maffis?"

Ever since leaving the safety of South Tip their road had been cobblestone. Cobblestone was cheap and was incredibly easy to make with a generator. For days they had seen nothing but the long grey stretch of the stoney road down the center of boring green plains with a few burnt out houses and farms here and there. But now below them the cobblestone was turning to gravel and sand. "We are in the county of Breezelyn now, Durgey. Soon we will be at Shorebreeze and your new life on this server will begin."

The sun dipped below the horizon and returned twice before Maffis spotted the crude cobblestone walls of Shorebreeze. He had given Durgey a spare stone sword, but the young player was not very skilled against creepers, so Maffis had needed to rescue him a few times; there were now several holes in the road south of them. But now that would soon be over. He would leave the boy in Shorebreeze and he would return to the south and continue on with his bandit hunting business.

"Ew, that place looks ugly," Durgey said as they neared the walls. "I thought there were really big and cool cities on this server. Like pretty ones. My brother said that some were so cool that they looked like they were made in creative mode, but the people who built them were just really talented."

"Well, yes, there are some cities like that. But Shorebreeze is not one of them. It is a community that pays its taxes with fish and, when they are able to find any, ores like iron and lapis. It is quite the poor town due to this, and they can't afford the special blocks to beautify their walls and buildings," Maffis said, thinking back to the last time he had seen the splendor that was Lazuline City. Shorebreeze was like the oak sapling that drops from decaying leaves when you were expecting the apple that was Lazuline.

"Then why can't I go there! I don't want to be a miner in some stinky ol' fishing town!" he protested and stopped walking.

"You can go ahead and go then," said Maffis and he continued on his horse to Shorebreeze. "Now you are close enough to the town that you can get there without my guidance. If you don't make it, it's not my fault. I did my best to guide you here. But as for me, I think I will visit the inn and get some sleep. It has been a few days."

An annoying thing added to the server was the need to sleep. Due to the massive amount of players always on the server it was impossible to skip the night. In order to keep beds useful, players were given an energy meter that would deplete after some time. If a player did not sleep for a certain number of days they would suffer several negative potion effects, such as slowness and nausea. It had been five days for Maffis and the slowness was setting in, the same must have been true for Durgey as he was slower than he had ever been.  
He left Durgey on the gravel and sand road and had his horse sprint onwards towards the town. Due to supporting Durgey as well, his rations had depleted twice as fast, and he was eager to restock. Fish would be the most likely food he would find in Shorebreeze, but that was fine as long as they had enough salmon for him. Regular fish did not have the saturation he wanted, and it would be a long time before he could get the steaks he wanted back at the Tip.

But his hopes of fish were dashed as he arrived at the main gate of Shorebreeze. Instead of it being a single block gate that was lowered by piston as had been the case last time he had been to the town, the entrance to the town was a gaping hole in the side of the wall. The redstone circuitry was visible below as well, and there was no guard to man the lever that was meant to activate it. _A creeper? No, this is much too large_ , he thought to himself. There were no blocks floating about in the hole, so either someone had already collected them or they had despawned.

He tied his horse to a fence post; he always carried a fence with him whilst travelling, and jumped over the hole in the ground to enter the town. Inside he found it to be much different than the last time he had been there. Large holes dotted the main road through the town. The crude, box-like wooden houses had been burned away and the cobblestone ones had been exploded. No creeper did this.

"Whoa! I really don't like this place, Maffis! It's terrible here!" a voice called from behind him and Maffis saw that Durgey had finally followed him in.

There was no one else around. No players walked the broken roads. The lapis blue banners with three stone-grey indents on their tops and bottoms hung lonely from abandoned buildings. Aside from the two of them, the town was silent and empty. "Durgey, I want you to be quiet for awhile, please," said Maffis as he began to look inside of ruined houses. When he found chests he would check them, but they were still full of useful items and food. The town had not been robbed. The bandit griefers of the south would have taken Shorebreeze for all its worth if they had attacked it.

"Where is everyone?" the boy whispered.

"I'm not sure, Durgey," he said, and then found a head on the ground as he walked into a box-shaped cobblestone house with a hole where a door used to be. When a player died on the server they were dead for good, they could never respawn. With communities playing a big part in the server, it was made so that heads would drop to the ground at the spot players died. This would allow friends of the fallen to make proper memorials. Though this was no memorial.

"There must be twenty of them!" squeaked Durgey and Maffis looked to where the boy was looking. The entrance to the town had been clean but for the rubble of destruction, but further into the town was a cemetery, a cemetery where the headstones were literal heads.

"More than twenty," he said and started towards them. Durgey was making a whimpering sound into his microphone and would not stop, even when Maffis shushed him. He was a child after all, and much too young to understand all of this. There was death in Minecraft, and most of the time it did not matter, one could simply respawn. But on this server, this server where players worked hard for everything, death was a terribly awful thing. And a lot of death had happened here.

He pulled out his sword, an enchanted piece of iron that had not seen use in ages. "Maffis? Why'd you get your sword out? I thought you said there was no iron."

"There is little iron coming out of the mines, but there is still some. And there are relics left from the days of plenty," said the bandit hunter.

They continued through the remains of the town until they came to the docks. Shorebreeze's walls covered its northern, southern, and western sides, but its eastern side was open to the sea. Its great oak dock was still intact, apart from a few missing blocks of wood. Several boats still floated, empty and hopeless of ever finding their owners.

"I think my brother would have liked this place," said Durgey. "He liked to sneak up on people that lived on the shores. He did it all the time!"

"Sneak up? What do you mean by that?"

"Oh, you know, he'd row his little boat up to the wooden dock things at night when everyone was inside their houses. Then he'd run int'a town and he and his friends would blow all the stuff up!" the little player laughed.

"Your brother is a bandit then?" Even if this was the case, Maffis tried to negate any negative feelings towards Durgey. So far Durgey had shown no signs of wanting to grief, he had only wanted to play on the server and possibly see the beautiful cities. He still had a chance at an honest life.

"No, he was an army guy. The people he blew up were bad guys, he said. But he's dead now. Well, not really, just in the game."

Maffis wondered how long ago it had been since his brother was a soldier. The last war in Sedweest had been nearly one hundred years ago, and in the other lands nearly fifty. He also did not like the idea of soldiers ruining the towns of players they considered enemies. In his experience the _good guys_ were always the ones defending their lands from the dark players, instead of being the ones doing the invading. What side had Durgey's brother been on?

"I used to watch him, before he died. Sometimes when they got to the town it was still daytime and they would just walk in, no one thought they were army guys. But then when they were all inside they'd put on their iron armor and just start slashing at people with their swords, clicking their flint-and-steel all over the ground, and blowing up buildings with TNT. It was always funny to watch,... but now when I see this it makes me sad." _Good_ , thought Maffis.

"Well, if they were all in iron armor it must have been a really long time ago then. One hundred years or more," said Maffis. He remembered the early days where every other player was in full iron gear, most of them enchanted. Now players were either in leather or naked, only the richest were able to wear metals.

"Umm, he's only thirteen," Durgey laughed. "How could people be on here one hundred years ago, Minecraft isn't even that old."

"I already explained this, Durgey," Maffis sighed. "There are days and nights in Minecraft. We've seen that several times on our way here. So, in order to differentiate between Minecraft days and real world days, we call Minecraft days _days_ and real days _years_. You'll get used to it soon." Hopefully.

"I guess it makes sense, it's just a little confusing," said Durgey, and then the two of them were quiet for a moment. Maffis looked out to the ocean, imagining the land across it. It had been many years since he left Sedweest, since he last left its southern tip. He wondered what had changed there, or if anything had changed at all. Shorebreeze had certainly changed, but by what?

"I hope my brother's friends didn't do this," Durgey said, breaking the silent moment.

"I doubt they did, Durgey. You said they were soldiers, army guys. The world is at peace, they would have no reason to attack a town of Breezelyn. Besides, the chances of them still being around on the server are very slim. Most people get tired of it after thirty or so years and are never seen from again. Of course, they are forever considered dead by the server after ten years without logging in, so they can never return."

"Umm, I saw them yester- last year when my brother died. I'm pretty sure they're still around," he laughed again. Some people found a child's laugh charming, almost magical. It was wearing very thin on Maffis' mind.

"Remember Durgey, a year here refers to a day in the real world," he said and turned to leave the docks. "We'll have to take you somewhere else. Breezetown is near here, though I'm not too sure what roles they'd have for you. Dvelg and Dverg would be suitable, both strong mining towns, though it'll take quite a bit longer to get there."

"What about one of the big cities? Deaf-fork, or whatever it was called. My brother said that was the best city of them all!" the boy said. Maffis had never heard of a city called Deaf-fork, though there were bound to be new cities that had not existed when he was a part of the world and not tucked down in the southern reaches of the westernmost continent. "Or Lazuli-thingy! He told me about that too!"

"Lazuline City is kilometers and kilometers from here. It will take many, many days to get there. Probably not the best option," he said. He was trying to picture the map of Sedweest in his mind. Several players had made maps of the land and posted them on the server's forums. They were fairly accurate, based off of the in-game maps, but sometimes large chunks were missing simply due to the size of the world. "Dvelg is the closest of the two, so that's where we'll g-" He stopped at the undeniable sound of a block breaking.

Two blocks from where he was standing a cobblestone in the road broke open, revealing a hidden hole. "I can't stand hiding anymore. If you're going to kill me, kill me!" a voice said as a player climbed out of the hole. His skin had the basic head of Steve, but instead of brown hair it was black, and his body looked like a typical adventurer's with a brown shirt and backpack strapped all around him.

Maffis held out his sword and stood in front of Durgey. "Are you what's leftover from this town's people? Or are you what caused them to disappear?"

"I was the innkeeper! _Was_. Then those grey walkers appeared and destroyed everything!" the player shouted, his voice was not as deep as Maffis', but it was clear he was not a child.

"Grey… walkers?" Maffis' heart sank.


	2. Morned

By the time the stone brick walls of the city rendered into Morned's view, he was already sick of arguing with Parner. Even before they had left town, he had been trying to persuade Morned to go with his plan. But it was a stupid plan and he was not about to have any part of it. They were nearly at the city, their quest was almost at an end, and there was no longer a reason to argue about it. And yet Parner still continued.

"Shut up Parner! May the admins smite me now, I'm finished with this conversation!" Morned shouted, loud enough he thought the guards atop the wall would hear him. His travelling companion was dressed in full blue dyed leather armor, but for his trousers which were dyed a lime green. That was the traditional way players, usually soldiers, showed their allegiances. The majority of their armor was the color of their kingdom, in this case blue for the blue land of Sedweest, and his trousers were light green for his county, Melon.

"But it would have been so efficient! How can you not see it?" Parner protested. "It would have doubled our profits, I'm sure! Four inventories instead of these lousy two we have with us right now! You really did choose poorly, you know Morned. How's the countess supposed to buy all those fancy new swords if we can't bring back the gold?"

"Oh, shut up you idiot! For the last time, it would have taken us twice as long, or longer!" Morned had not wanted Parner to come along with him to begin with, but the countess had urged him to bring some protection along. Parner was the captain of the Melon guard, the highest ranking soldier in his county, so she had suggested him.

Morned was a sheep farmer from Melon Town, the capital of Melon. Along with mutton, his farm produced an excess amount of wool. It was a nice building material, giving the town plenty of color. But the countess was beginning to tire of looking at a rainbow colored town every day, so she had ordered Morned to sell most of it away.

Now he was on his way to Lazuline City with an inventory full of lapis-dyed wool in hopes that there would be buyers in such a large city. Parner's inventory was full of wool as well, though he had every color other than blue; Morned had wanted to bring more blue, thinking they would want more of it in a city named after the stone used to dye it. It was sure to earn them something, maybe not a full gold block, but something at least.

"Oh, but making multiple trips wouldn't?" Parner's idea was to fill a chest and minecart with wool and push it all the way to Lazuline City. Morned did not entirely dislike the idea, even if it had come from Parner, but there were too many flaws in it. The most prominent being that the road to Lazuline was not completely flat, and each time they would come to a one block rise they would need to break the chest-cart, put it back down, and refill it before they continued on.

"Maybe if we make enough off of this sale you can convince Carsi to connect Melon Town to the railway. I'm sure she'll be happy to, not a waste of iron at all!"

"See, Morned, I know that you're being a smart-alek and all, but that's not a bad idea. It would save us a lot of time travelling to and from Lazuline. I bet if I talked to the countess she'd see how it could work in our benefit. I think she fancies me."

Morned could not help but laugh at that. He had lived in Melon Town for over twenty-five years, and not once had Countess Carsi shown any interest in Parner that he could see. If anything, she had seemed more into him than anyone, though that was to be expected. Morned was the only real desireable male player in Melon Town. His only real competition had been Beyos, and he had not been around for the past seven years.

Parner continued to argue his case clear up to the eastern gate of Lazuline City. Morned gawked up in awe at the size of the walls. Despite visiting the city several times, he was still amazed at the beauty of them. Sixty blocks tall and thirteen blocks thick, with a solid obsidian core, the stone bricks were inlaid with blocks of lapis and wools of blue and yellow and green set into swirling patterns. Pure blue banners hung from the very top of the wall, below them the banners of each county were dotted; he saw at least three Melon banners on this side. The first time he had seen them he could have sworn they had been made by the admins in creative mode, but they had indeed been crafted by master builders in the same survival mode that he was in now.

At the gate they were stopped by a guard dressed in full blue leather armor. Morned handed the guard the book Carsi had given him, explaining his reason for needing entrance to the city. The guard looked it over, saw that it had the countess' name signed to it, and let the two through the iron bar gate. They would have been let into the city anyway, Lazuline was a city open to everyone, but Carsi had still felt it necessary to let the guards know who they were. Everytime Morned went through the iron bar gate, he thought of how much Carsi would have hated to see it. She would have thought it a waste of valuable iron.

Through the eastgate they entered the faire quarter of Lazuline City. The city was divided up into four sections; the residential quarter where a majority of the people lived, the market quarter which held all of the businesses and market stands for players to sell their wares, the faire quarter which was where most of the fun in the town was had, and the royal quarter which was where the palace was located.

"We should play some games while we're here!" Parner said, and despite Morned wanting to, he knew they couldn't. There were games and shows everywhere he looked. Stalls with players performing parkour tricks on horses, archery courses, cow fishing, and many other attractions. His favorite games were here in the quarter; spleef and that one game where you had to slide a snowball across ice into a hole. It was tempting, but he had a job to do.

"We need to get to the market, Parner. Remember, the wool," he said and noticed the colors of the faire district; orange and yellow, red and blue, green and magenta, and every color of wool available in the game. Each of the games attractions were held in a stall that resembled a circus tent made of two colors of wool. "Wait, maybe we don't need to go there just yet."

"No, you said to remember the wool! We can't go play games now," Parner said, irritating Morned. "But hey, it looks like they use a lot of wool here for their tents and stuff. Maybe we could sell to them."

Morned looked at his companion silently. Behind his computer screen his face was twisted into a scowl, but it could not be seen on his generic male Minecraft face. He wanted to punch Parner so badly, but he was his protector and escort to Lazuline. The countess would be sour with him she learned that they had quarreled.

"Yes, that is a wonderful idea Parner," he said, gritting his teeth whilst trying to smile. It was best to have Parner believe he had the idea first. The player had an ego on him, that was true, but Morned liked him big headed better than long faced.

They walked through the faire quarter and tried at each of the games to sell their wool. Each game was run by players that called themselves the _faire masters_ , and each faire master they came to would not buy their wool. The faire master of the ice game had said she lost all of her money to a gambling game, but the rest of them all seemed to have given their money to the king in taxes.

The last faire master they had come to was telling them the same story. She was a young woman, around the same age as Morned from the sound of her, and despite her being nothing but a pixelated model, he could not help but feel attracted to her. There was something about her voice, the way she talked, and everything about her. He was having difficulty paying any attention to what she was saying as he was enjoying her voice without listening to the words. "Have you?" she asked and Morned returned to attention.

"I'm sorry, have I what?"

"Have you tried selling the wool to the king?" the girl asked.

"Well, I hadn't considered it, I guess. Our plan was just to set up a stand at the market and sell to whoever wanted to buy wool. But then we saw that you carnie-folk used a lot of wool in your builds, so we wanted to try you," said Morned, realizing that he should have used faire-folk instead of carnie.

The girl did not seem to notice his choice in words, much to Morned's relief. "Well, you'll find no luck here. Every ounce of gold that we've made from our attractions was taken at the start of the year by King Daggeff. Normally he would only take a little, I guess enough to pay his guards or whatever he uses it for, but this time he seemed a little greedy," the faire master said and held out a gold nugget. "This here is my last piece of gold. One for all my trouble's. It's not easy running a spleef stall, you know. After each match I need to reset everything, turn the snowballs into blocks, get new spades if they need replacing. And all I have for last years effort is one tiny piece of metal."

"I'm sorry about that," he said, turning to Parner. "You don't think he'd do the same to Melon Town, do you? The tax collectors hadn't been there when we left, had they?"

"No, but Carsi had already went around collecting. She took the normal amount she always did, though I think she let the miner skip this year's taxes since he hasn't found anything in like forever. Hope that doesn't come back to bite her."

Melon Town was not a mining town. It was not a melon town either, that was left another town in Melon County, Rind. The majority of Melon Town's money came from Morned's mutton sales, though now he was branching out with wool at the countess' request. There were other businesses, of course, but they only provided for the local people, and did not bring in much outside money.

"I'm not sure what he's doing outside of the city, but for the people within it, well they're going to have a rough year if they can't make some quick sales," the faire master said. "If you're going to the market to sell to the people here, you're going to have bad luck. No one has money to spare, especially not on decorative things like wool. Now, beds are useful, but the chances of someone needing a bed now aren't good either. I'll wager that people are going to be moving out pretty soon, and no one will be moving in. Nonexistent players have no need for beds."

The girl liked to talk, and Morned did not want her to stop. Nothing she had told him had been positive since they had started talking, but he did not care. He wanted to keep talking to her until his mother told him it was time to get off the computer and go to bed. No one had been able to keep his interest this long since the baker's assistant had come to live in Lazuline City, but he was too focused on this girl to wonder if she was still there.

"What was your name again?" he asked her, forgetting to acknowledge what she had just said.

"Again? I don't think I told you in the first place," she answered without answering him.

"Well then, we should go and talk to the king. Hope he's hungry for several thousand blocks of sheep fur," Parner drolled. "He'd be in one of the towers, right?" The king's palace was a series of five towers, four seventy-some block high towers of cobble and stone bricks surrounded an even taller one. The centermost tower was the King's Tower, and it held the Lapis Throne and the Blue King of Sedweest. Out of all the other sights in the city, the palace was the greatest one, simply for its superfluous decorations, with the four outer towers having steep, peaked roofs of lapis blocks, and the center being out of pure gold with block of emerald at the top.

"Don't expect to just walk in and speak with him though. Folks are saying that ol' Daggeff is going mad up in his palace. Why else would he be taxing all of us hard working players so harshly? I'd wager you'd have to wait a long time to get an audience with him, if ever," she said, and Morned was starting to think he was going to be stuck with his wool forever. And Countess Carsi would not be happy with that.

"Then we should go and set up an appointment," said Morned. "The sooner we do that, the sooner we'll talk to him, I suppose. Maybe you should go do that, Parner. I bet he'd be more willing to talk to a soldier than a farmer." Parner could sometimes be unbearable, but he did have a way with people, as long as they did not know him well.

"Right-o then! What are you going to do though? Stay here and play games without me?"

"No! Of course not!" he said, trying his best to feign insult, even if that was his true intent. Part of his intent anyway, he mainly wanted to play with the girl. "I was going to go to the market, just on the off chance that someone there will buy my wool. I know it's a long shot, but I can't pass up on the chance, not if the king's acting all wimbly."

"Like I said, most of the folk here don't have gold. But there might be a few travellers that've come just to do some shopping," the girl said, though Morned had not thought of that. His goal now was to push off the wool sale on Parner so he could spend more time with the faire master. He only wished he could find out her name. "I had a few boys from over west a few days ago, Dull County I think. Might be they're still here in the city."

"Sounds good, I suppose. So I'll just head on to the palace then to see if the king is up for a buy?" asked Parner and Morned nodded. "Alrighty then. But what if King Daggeff wants all the wool we have, and you end up selling it to some random player at the market? Maybe we should just wait and see what he says before we try to sell it there. Or maybe we both should just try to sell it in the market before going before the king?"

"Umm, no, Parner," he said, trying to think of a reason as to why that would be a bad idea. "If that happens… we'll just tell the king we have our wool back in Melon Town, and we can have it shipped here in a week or two. Yeah, that should work," he said, not even having to lie.

"We wouldn't have needed to do that if we had used the chest-carts like I suggested," he said, and Morned was about ready to shout at him. "But, I guess it'll have to do. Right then, I guess I'll head off then. Have fun in the market, and try not to get killed! We know how hard that is, according to our loving countess!" he laughed and left Morned with the faire girl.

"Do you think he'll have any luck getting an audience with the king?" asked Morned to the girl.

"Depends what kind of mood Daggeff is in. I hear he has some pretty mean mood swings. Sometimes he's a real nice guy, gives good guard jobs to players who need jobs, that sort of thing. But then he'll go away for awhile and it's like he drank a whole gallon of vinegar before he returns. Starts yellin' at his people, makin' up crazy new laws, and he scares half his court. If the king is having a good day, your friend has a somewhat decent chance of talkin' to him. If he's havin' one of his off days, well, I really hope those boys from Dull are looking for wool"

"Right," said Morned. "By the way, I still didn't get your name."

"You're right, you didn't."

"Well, would you mind giving it to me?" asked Morned.

"I wouldn't mind, no. But I think I'd mind someone playin' my game even less. How about it, woolboy? You wanna play some spleef? I'll even be your opponent. I'm pretty good though, just as a warnin', probably too good for you." Somehow he could feel a sly smile behind her pixelated face. There was no way he could resist playing a game with this girl, not if the city was on fire or if it was in the middle of a great battle.

They played for what seemed like days. Her arena was quite small, only about ten blocks wide and thirty blocks long; it had to be in order to fit into the district without taking up other faire masters' space. He would try his hardest to break the snow blocks below her, but each time she would be one block ahead of him and the snowballs would fall below without her. But whenever she tried to break the block below him, he would fall.

Spleef was his game, on other servers he would more often than not be the winner. And now this girl was winning and he could not beat her. But every time he would fall down into the pit of fall-breaking water, she would laugh. And that made it worth it.

But then someone let out a terrible, terrifying, scream. And that someone was Morned.


	3. Parner

At the request of Carsi, the Countess of Melon, Parner had went along with the local sheep farmer to protect him on his way to Lazuline City. The road to the city was generally a safe one, there was hardly ever any news of bandit attacks or anything of that sort, but Countess Carsi was always the nervous one, convinced that something bad was going to happen every second. So she had sent her captain along with Morned.

Parner did not mind being an escort to Lazuline though. It gave him an excuse to leave Melon Town and do a bit of sightseeing. Melon Town was not a dull town, not as dull as the towns in Dull anyway, but it was not as glamorous or beautiful as Lazuline City was. He would also get the chance to meet new people and get away from the annoying ones that he already knew.

But once they had arrived at the city, they had found it's people had a shortage of gold. Without gold, no one would want to buy Morned's excess of wool, and that meant no new gold coming into Melon Town to pay for iron and all the other things that Countess Carsi had been asking for. Parner did not want to disappoint his countess, but the sale was starting to look bleak, especially after the little carnie girl had told them about King Daggeff's sudden tax increase.

Countess Carsi dreamed of arming all of her soldiers with enchanted iron swords. In a normal game of Minecraft that dream would have been quite small, but in this world it was a big ask. But Parner wanted to see his countess' dream come true, and he hoped Morned did as well. So now he was going to see the king in an attempt to sell all the wool they had brought from Melon Town.

The royal quarter was not far from the faire quarter, where he and Morned had entered the city. It was the smallest of the four quarters, as it only consisted of the king's palace, but it was the most extravagant of them. Or it was, as now it was five tall cobble and brick towers with no roofs on their tops. Once they had been made of lapis and gold and emerald, now there was nothing.

"Uh, hey!" Parner tried to get the attention of a passing player. "What's up with the palace? They doing some renovations or something?"

"Are you new?" asked the player. "Oh, green pants. You're not from around here then. Guess you haven't heard about the robbery then. Well, there was a robbery, obviously now that I've said that. Not sure how it happened, but it did. So the king's taking down all the expensive decorative blocks to hide from future thieves."

"Looks a bit bland now, doesn't it?" he asked, but the player continued walking and paid no more attention to him. "Rude," said Parner as he continued to look up at the roofless towers. _Wool would make a good substitute. From afar, who could tell the difference?_ Morned would be so happy with him if he sold all of the wool to the king for his palace. The wool from Morned's sheep would be on top of the king's palace, for everyone in the city to see.

He found the entrance to the southernmost tower and was greeted by two guards in full blue armor from the chest down and iron helmets on their heads. "Hello, boys! I'd like to have a quick chat with the king, if you don't mind," said Parner in the friendliest voice he could muster.

One of the guards snorted and turned to the other. "Well, Pomfy, we got another one wantsa see the king. Better just let'm walk right in, I think. What 'bout you?"

"Sorry, kiddo, but the king isn't seeing anyone right now, other than his advisors. Maybe if you come back in a week or two. Or next year even," said the guard called Pomfy.

"Or two years. Or three. You know what, it might just be best if you head back to whatever town you're from. You got some lime green trousers there, Melon is it? Yeah, you'd be better use back in Melon then waitin' on King Daggeff to give you any time," said the guard that was not called Pomfy.

"Well, I was just thinking that I could maybe help the king out. I noticed he was missing a few of his roofs and all," said Parner.

"What about his roofs? You got a bunch of magic blocks in your inventory to replace all that gold? Or do you plan to stay up there and act as the blocks themselves?" laughed the guard that was not Pomfy.

"I figured that if King Daggeff was afraid of his roof getting stolen, he might want to go with something that looks nice, but isn't quite as valuable. Wool perhaps?" said Parner as he held out a block of yellow wool, then scrolled through his hotbar to show off several different colors.

"A woolmonger, eh? You'd best head on over to the market district if you mean to be sellin' those things there, Melon."

"Be quiet, Nursen, he might have a point there," said Pomfy. Parner liked Pomfy considerably more than Nursen. Pomfy made some noises that sounded like pondering for a moment, and then turned to Nursen. "Go and find Shul, tell him that there is someone he'd like to talk to."

Nursen complained but ultimately left to find this Shul that Pomfy had mentioned. Several minutes went by before he returned with a player skinned to look like a librarian, square glasses over pixel eyes and all. "Here's his highness' worm," Nursen said upon return.

"You know I don't like that, Nursen. I am King Daggeff's document keeper. That does not make me a worm, no more than it makes you soldiers dragons," the player called Shul said. He had an almost nasally voice that made Parner cringe and wrinkle the back of his neck. "Anyway, who is this Melon soldier and what is his significance to me?"

"I am Captain Parner of Melon Town. Though right now I guess I'm just assistant woolmonger, since the real salesman is trying to make his sales in the market. Would the king like to buy some wool?"

"That's not much of a sales pitch," said the nasally voiced worm. "Why did you two send for me? What use does the king have for wool? We don't need any new carpets or beds. No new banners need to be made. This is a waste of my time."

"Shul, this… captain has a good idea on what we could use the wool for," Pomfy said, looking up to the top of the tower.

"Ah, I see. That is not a terrible idea, though that would ultimately be up to the king. I can buy things for him as I wish, but only he can say how they are used. If he wants the wool for the roofs then it will be done. But I don't want to buy anything and then have him yelling at me for making the wrong choice."

"Maybe you should, you know, go ask and see?" said Parner, forgetting to use his friendly voice.

"Yes… maybe I should. But for now I suppose you can wait around in the tower. There are beds at the top for the soldiers, you can rest there whilst I go and talk to the king. I make no promises," Shul said and disappeared into the tower.

Pomfy let Parner inside and lead him up the birch half-slab stairs that wound their way around the near circular tower, as close to a circular tower as could be achieved in the game. At the top he found the beds that Shul had mentioned and laid down in one. It had been several days since he had slept and the slowness would soon set in.

After he had laid in bed for the ten real-world minutes needed to recharge his energy and ward off the slowness, Parner got up and began to explore the top three floors of the tower. It was quite plain on the inside, just as it was now on the outside with the lapis and gold roofs being torn down to protect them from theft. The only decorations inside this tower were armor stands holding the standard pure blue Lazuline City armor and item frames filled with enchanted and unenchanted stone swords, one even had a gold sword. From this, Parner decided that the southmost tower of the king's palace was a barracks.

When he had seen all he wanted to see, he made his way back down the birch steps, but stopped when he saw another player climbing up them. Pomfy. The staircase was quite narrow, it was only one block wide, and he did not want to bump off the only Lazuline guard he had met that he actually liked, nor did he want to be bumped off himself. The thirty block drop down to the bottom of the tower would leave him no chance of surviving.

He climbed back to the floor with the armor stands and item frames and waited for Pomfy. "Shul hasn't returned yet?" he asked Parner when he arrived. Parner shook his head. "You must excuse him, he likely got caught up in some royal business. With the people of the North Forest signing petitions to secede from his kingdom, bandits being sighted in Breezelyn and Dvigland, and now this robbery nonsense, King Daggeff has a lot on his kingly plate, and he needs Shul to help him. He'll get to your wool eventually."

Parner had not heard anything about bandits making their way north of their normal griefing-grounds, and he was surprised he had not heard anything about the forest people causing trouble, as Melon was on the forest's border. He had only just learned about the robbery from the player outside the palace, but he knew little about it. "What's this robbery about? How can someone rob the king?"

"It is… difficult to explain. Do you know anything about the royal vault?" Pomfy asked and Parner did not. "It is a room of chests used to store the kings valuables, the ones he can not fit in his enderchest. Not just gold, but also sentimental treasures such as the sword of Mikyal the Bear or a piece of leather from his late horse. The vault should have been impossible to enter without anyone noticing, but somehow they did."

"How exactly was it supposed to be impossible? It's not like they could install security cameras in Minecraft."

"Basically, the vault is a box of obsidian suspended in the air. There are no blocks touching it, so anyone trying to get it would have to either climb up, or climb down. Guards are placed atop and below the box, and there are always guards circling the outside. No one should have been able to sneak close enough to break in, nevertheless sneak back out. It's a real mystery, one that's really going to mess up our economy."

"Well, just so long as the king doesn't double my taxes, I don't really care. Do you have any clues or anything though?" asked Parner. If they had clues, they could solve the case. If they solved the case, they could get all the gold back, and then Parner would not have to worry about his own inventory losing more than the normal amount of gold nuggets.

"Erm, well, I'm not sure if they consider it a clue or not, but they supposedly heard an explosion go off inside of the vault. That was what tipped them off to the issue in the first place, otherwise it may have been days before anyone went inside. When they did go in, they found that the TNT, or whatever had exploded, had left nothing but the broken chest entities floating. The chests, and a player head."

"A player head? So then whoever robbed the place died doing it? Seems like they weren't a very good thief," said Parner.

"I suppose not," said Pomfy and a sound like chin stubble being rubbed by a hand came through his microphone. "You're a soldier right? The captain of Melon Town, you said if I remember."

"Yeah, I'm the captain," Parner answered, but he wasn't sure if he should also say that he had only gotten the promotion seven years ago. It seemed a long time to him, but most of the high ranking soldiers and guards in Lazuline had probably had their positions for a lot longer than that, possibly over a century for the highest of the high.

"Right then," he said, and the sound grew louder. It sounded like he was rubbing his chin in thought. "I've got an idea then. How about I show you the vault? It'd be easier than explaining it to you, and it might be good to get some fresh eyes on the crime scene. You might see something that we Lazuliners missed."

Parner did not care to see the vault. He only wished that this Shul character would hurry up with whatever he was doing with King Daggeff, and tell him if he was going to buy Morned's wool. Lazuline City was great, but he was starting to miss the countess, and she was probably wanting him back at her side. But Shul had not come back yet, and he had no idea when he would be finished. "Sure, I guess I'll look at it. It might be fun to see a place that once held all that gold and stuff, even if the stuff isn't there anymore."

Pomfy lead Parner back down to the bottom floor of the southmost tower. There they entered a tight, one block wide tunnel that lead them into the central tower. Inside of this tower, which was the King's Tower, it was decorated much more than the barracks. Not only did it have armor stands and item frames filled with swords, it had blue banners hanging everywhere, and potted plants and paintings and everything that truly made it look like the home of the king.

Pomfy went up to one of the paintings, one that resembled an old arcade game, and jumped through it into a hidden room. Parner followed, and inside found a plain stone brick room with a hole in the center of the floor. "This can't be the vault," he said, but Pomfy did not respond, but instead dropped into the hole. Parner looked down it and saw the guard standing only ten blocks below in a pool of water. "Oh. Okay," he said and joined him.

"Now, just down this staircase and we'll be there," the player said and Parner followed him down a stone brick staircase that was connected to the pool of water. They went down into a wide open room that looked to have been carved straight from the ground; most of the walls and floor were regular stone, dirt, granite, and andesite. In the center of the great room was a great, though not as great, obsidian cube that looked to be floating with no other blocks touching it. "And this is the vault. Pretty impressive, eh?"

It was not _that_ impressive. All Parner could think about was the time it would had taken to mine all of the obsidian needed to make it. From just looking at the vault, it looked to have been twenty blocks by twenty blocks by twenty blocks. He was not the best at maths, so he could not tell if that meant it was made of four hundred and eighty blocks of obsidian, or eight thousand. It was a lot. It made him tired just thinking about it.

"That's 2,242 blocks of obsidian right there. Incredible to look at," said Pomfy, proving Parner's doubt in his mathematical abilities. The two walked to the base of the obsidian cube, and after giving an order to two of the guards standing below it, they built a dirt staircase up to the side of it. "Now, have you seen one of these in this world before?" he asked Parner and pulled out an enchanted diamond pickaxe. Now _that_ was impressive to Parner. He had never seen anything diamond on the server before. The highest tier items he had ever seen was the full set of enchanted iron armor that Countess Carsi had, but never wore.

After half a minute, a hole large enough for the two to walk through was opened and Pomfy and Parner stepped inside. There was not much to see, it was a large blackish-purple room with no furniture or decoration. "So, what exactly am I supposed to see?" asked Parner.

"I'm not sure, just anything. Did you see anything on the way in that may have given the culprits an easy way in? Do you see anything in here that I'm not seeing right now?" Pomfy gave Parner a minute to look around, but he found nothing that stood out. "I never expected you to find something, just thought I'd give it a shot," said Pomfy, and turned to leave.

But Parner stopped him and walked to the back of the room. There was something different there. It was hard to see when looking directly at it, but there was most certainly a difference on that wall. "Wait, how many blocks did you say make up this cube?"

"Well, when the two blocks from our entrance are filled in, there will be 2,242. Why?"

"I don't think that's right anymore. Because I just found ten more," he said, and stood beside a pillar of obsidian that was sticking out from the wall. A frame of obsidian stood against the back wall of the vault, four blocks high and four blocks wide. "It's a nether portal. That's how they got in," he said.

"But, that's impossible! The Blue Flame should've- No, this can not be!" Pomfy said and came to examine the blocks. "Yes, it's the right size. Ten, plus the four in the floor. And I suppose the explosion was the TNT they used to deactivate it."

"And then the thief probably didn't get out in time, and got caught up in the blast," said Parner. He was quite proud of himself for figuring this all out, though he was surprised that none of the Lazuline City soldiers had seen the protruding obsidian. He also found it strange that they had never suspected a nether portal opening inside, but then remembered something Pomfy had said. "Oh, what was that Blue Flame thing you mentioned?"

"The Blue Flame? Er, right. I think you should come with me."


	4. Carsi

Carsi logged back onto the server after being offline for a little over a real-world hour. Unlike most servers where when a player logs off they are no longer in the game, players on this server leave their characters in the world. Normally players logged off in houses or inns, somewhere safe where they would not be harmed. The Countess of Melon was in her own bed in her own home in her own town.

After waking, she sorted through her inventory, organizing the mess that had been made the last time she had been on. She had been collecting taxes, bringing important papers to important people, and had sent the sheep farmer off to the city to sell his surplus of wool. That left her inventory in a jumble of books and wheat and all the other random items she had somehow picked up through it all.

When her pockets were sorted and she had finished eating a few loaves of bread, Carsi went to her window to harvest the carrots from her garden. It wasn't much of a garden, only two blocks of tilled dirt beside her window, but she enjoyed watching them grow. The only other crops grown in Melon Town were the wheat in Dahome's field, most of which was bought by the baker and Morned for his sheep. Her garden was her own personal crop. With her carrots picked and replanted, she grabbed a stack of rotten flesh and left her room.

She entered her main hall and was greeted by her personal guard, Geena. "Good afternoon, Countess. Did you enjoy your break?" the girl asked. Under her blue leather helmet it was difficult to make out any of her features, other than her big lavender eyes. Her previous captain had appointed Geena to the position shortly before he died. Carsi saw it as his send off, the last good thing he was able to do for her before he met his end.

"It was fine, thank you Geena. Not what I would call relaxing, though," said the countess. Her teachers had been assigning more homework than usual lately, and she was finding it difficult to juggle school and her responsibilities on the server. "How have things been?"

"Not terrible, but there were a few issues. A player was trying to renovate her house on Torch Street, they wanted to expand their fireplace, and ended up setting their house on fire. It was put out, but not before jumping to a neighboring house and doing damage there. Luckily there were no fatalities," Geena said. Along with her being her personal guard, Geena acted as a secretary to Carsi.

"You're right, that's not terrible, but it's not good either. Maybe I should think about making a law requiring permits for renovations for any sort of major modification like that. We can't have someone burning down the entire town just because they want a nicer living room." _Zoning permits. That will make my people love me for sure_. "Anything else?"

"The priest stopped by and asked for more redstone," Geena said, and that was not a surprise to Carsi. He asked that every year, and every year she had to refuse him. "And the tax collector came from Lazuline. After he had taken what you had collected, he gave us the warning that next year they would be doubled. Apparently there was some trouble in the city that needs paying for, but he didn't go into much detail."

 _Fantastic. How are we supposed to come up with that much gold?_ "Then I do hope Morned can establish a wool trade somehow in the city. We may also need to create a few new jobs as well, maybe build a tree farm?" _And maybe push Darnilk a bit harder, if he isn't already at his limit._ "Oak trees, probably. Then we could sell the apples as well as the wood."

"Very good, Countess," said Geena and Carsi quickly wrote up some instructions on the location and size of the farm, and handed it to the girl.

Carsi left her house and was greeted by the bright rainbow roofs of her town. Most of the colored wools clashed and hurt her eyes, she hoped that if Morned was able to sell his wool that he would reclaim most of it from the town's rooftops to sell as well. The blue and lime wool could stay, they were the colors of Melon and could be used for many things.

She walked down Count Street and admired all of the buildings on it. A majority of the buildings in the town had been built by Beyos and had his signature style, a combination of medieval and fantasy architecture. But the buildings on Count Street were the first to be built, long before Melon Town was even a town. The previous count had built them himself, and whilst they were not as grand as anything Beyos had built, they had a charm to them.

Count Street was intersected by several other streets, but Carsi continued past them until she came to Pen Street, a rather new street that she had commissioned. It only had a few houses, Beyos had left town before they had all been finished. Houses were not the primary reason for the street though, it was the home of Carsi's most important residents. On the north end of the street, thirty oak fence pens lined the cobblestone road. Inside sixteen of these fences were Carsi's wolves.

Each of them had a name, but due to the server not showing nameplates above the heads of players or mobs, she had to remember them by the color of their collars. This was not difficult as each of their names was related to the color she dyed them; Blueno with the lapis collar, Redji with the rose red collar, and Maggie with the magenta collar, and all the rest. She had heard that some of her people thought it odd that she spent so much time and effort on her wolves, but she did not think it was that odd.

"Here you go, my babies!" Carsi said as she fed each of her pets a piece of rotten flesh. Red hearts appeared over their heads, but they could not get to each other to make baby wolves, as she had each of them penned in individually. She knew that they were not real, that they were only digital, but she still enjoyed them, just as she enjoyed her garden. In truth, sometimes she would rather spend her time with them than with anyone else on the server.

The other fourteen pens on Pen Street were empty. They were meant for cats. Unfortunately, the only place to find the ocelots needed to tame into cats was a jungle biome. And no jungle had been discovered on the server, in all the years it had been running. The world had been created by the server owner, a custom world of his own design. She suspected that he simply forgot to add a jungle.

She spent a full day with her wolves, talking to them, letting each one out of its pen for a walk, and moving decorative blocks around in their pens. When she was finished, she locked them all up again and gave them each another piece of zombie meat. It was the only real way to get rid of the stuff. There was enough food produced in town that players never went hungry enough to eat the rotten flesh, or for the past few years anyway.

Once all of her wolves were fed, she left Pen Street and made her way back onto Count Street, and continued back towards her house until she came to Stone Street, the second oldest street in Melon Town. The houses on this street were a combination of the old count's style and Beyos'. Maffis' houses were mostly made of cobblestone and wooden logs, their pyramidal roofs decorated with cobble halfslabs. Beyos' roofs were more like barn roofs, and had tall walls on two sides.

It was the most densely populated street on the town. Each house was home to at least five players, most of whom had lived their since the street had existed. She waved to them through their windows as she passed them, and the players reluctantly waved back. Once she thought she heard one say "Oh admins, it's _her_ ," but she could not be sure, it could have been her imagination.

At the end of Stone Street was Melon Town's mine. It's entrance was a tall cobblestone archway. Outside of the archway were two obsidian pillars, artifacts of ancient days when there were diamonds in Melon. She stepped up to the leftmost one and pressed the button at its bottom. Nothing happened. Carsi pressed it again, and when nothing happened again she entered the archway and made her way down the rough stone, cobblestone, and dirt stairs to the bottom of the world.

Darnilk, the town's miner, was most likely doing his job and away from what he considered his house. His house was truly more of a room that sat at the bottom of the stairs. It was here that the many tunnels of his mine started. A redstone wizard had installed a noteblock bell down in his house, connected to the obsidian pillar outside its entrance. It was meant to be used to call the miner up, but if he was not close enough, he could not hear it.

When she came to the bottom of the stairs, she found Darnilk's dank little room. It was barren but for a bed, a double chest, and a wall of twelve furnaces. Darnilk was nowhere to be seen. "Darnilk!" she called through the server's built in voicechat. He did not respond, so she assumed he was several hundred blocks from there.

She decided to wait in his house for awhile until he returned. Whilst she waited, she left her desk and grabbed a drink from her kitchen. When she returned to the game she found Darnilk standing in front of her. "Who does she think she is? Just standin' in my place not talking or anything! I don't care if she is the countess! It's rude!"

"Darnilk. I'm back," said Carsi.

"Oh. Well. Hello, Countess Carsi," said the miner. "Umm, what are you doing in my house exactly?"

"Well, you could probably guess. There are only ever two things I visit you for," said the countess. "This time it happens to be the one where I check and see if you've mined anything up." She knew the answer to that, but she still had to ask.

"Just like when you asked earlier this year, I don't have anything. Nothing but cobblestone and dirt and diorite. I suppose you could use the diorite for something. But other than that, it's a load of crap!"

"Nothing? Nothing at all? No lapis or redstone or anything like that?"

"Well, yeah, I found a few blocks of redstone. But that's not all that useful to us, is it? I mean, our wizard is gone to that wizard place. No one else here knows how to use it. You won't let me sell it. So it's rubbish!" said the miner as he held out a bit of redstone dust.

"I never said you couldn't sell it," said the countess annoyedly. "I said that no one would want to buy it. But I do have a use for it," she said and she could hear the miner sigh. "I know your opinions on the church, but they could really use the redstone to complete their circle. The priest has been asking for _years_. It would really help the town out if they could use it, Darnilk."

"No! None of my redstone is going to be going to that stupid church! If it's going to be used for something, it'll be something that is worth using it for! Maybe I could sell it to the wizards! Then it could be put into potions, or machines, or something that actually makes a difference and not just some circle that people huddle around!"

Carsi was not sure how it started, but the symbol for the Church of the Many was a circle of redstone blocks. It was meant to symbolize the unity of the Many, and show that all the players on the server were a part of the world, and thus connected to the admins. Melon Town's church still lacked their circle, and the priest would not let her forget that. "And how are you going to get your redstone to Deadforce? Are you going to sail all the way there yourself? No one else in town will do it for you, Darnilk."

"I'll think of something then!" Darnilk shouted. "I'm sorry, Carsi. I just... don't want to see it go to something like that if we can get some good out of it."

"You don't think the church does good?" asked the countess. "Kivlore was one of the nicest guys in this town. He was a friend to everyone here, a friend to me. Whenever someone needed something, he was there. Whenever someone was in danger, he protected them. Everyone here loved him. And then he died. There were no goodbyes. No one knew him outside of the game and will never be able to contact him again. How were the players here supposed to cope with that?" she asked, but the miner did not seem to have an answer. "They went to the church, Darnilk. Not just to send their prayer requests to the admins, but to grieve. The church is a place of gathering, of brotherhood. It does more good than gold ever will."

Darnilk was silent and Carsi let him think. "Well," he finally said, "I suppose that would be a good thing. I miss Kivlore myself, but I never went to that church for comfort. But if it helps other players..." Darnilk tossed Carsi a few pieces of redstone dust.

"Thank you, Darnilk," she said and turned to leave, but then remembered what Geena had told her. "Oh, and I have a bit more bad news. The king is raising his taxes."

"What!? How am I supposed to come up with more than what he's already taking from me? I couldn't even come up with this year's dues!" Darnilk cried. "There is nothing in the ground, Countess! The world is dying! It's no place for a miner."

She did not disagree with that. The ground was devoid of anything useful anymore. "I just thought I'd tell you."

Carsi left Darnilk's mine and started for her own house. But when she arrived at her front doors she stopped and turned back towards the other end of Count Street. At the end of the street, where it met Torch Street, she found the church. It was a beautifully constructed building, the only building in the town to have been built by the sheep farmer Morned, and looked like a church one would find in the real world; a cathedral almost.

Inside she found the priest. He was standing at the far back of the church, looking out the window that was colored to look like a great red ring. "Reverend Tellform." The priest turned from the window, but did not say anything. He stared at the countess silently and then turned back to the window. "Is something the matter, Reverend?" Again he did not speak. "I brought you some redstone. It's not much, only enough for one block."

"Thank you, Countess. Just leave it in the donation chest, please," the priest said without turning from the window.

Carsi went to the chest at the entrance of the church, but when she opened it she found that it was nearly full of food and building blocks. "People have been generous, haven't they, Tellform?"

Reverend Tellform turned back from the window. "When life is good, people tend to do good," he said. "But if life was to suddenly not be so good, well…"

"Well what?"

He sighed before he spoke. "Carsi, I have a terrible feeling. A feeling that I have never had before, yet I am still afraid of it. Something is coming to Melon Town. A terrible something," Tellform said and turned back to the window. "I have sent many prayers into the lava below, but none of them have been answered by the admins. Why would they come to help us, when our life is already so wonderful?"

"If something terrible was truly happening, they would come to help us, surely," said the countess.

"And what would they do? They have not been seen in the world since the dawn of days. Some people don't even believe in them anymore. They don't believe the server has any moderation, that it is only in control of the players. Kings and counts are their moderators now."

"Well, I believe in the power of the admins, Reverend. And I hope you do as well. It is your duty to put the faith in our people, not to question your own. Without the admins, our people will be lost," Carsi said to the back of Tellform's head. "But I don't think any of this matters right now, Tellform. We all have bad feelings from time to time. Right now I've got a terrible feeling in my gut about Morned. I don't know if I'm worried about him not making the wool sale or what it is, but either way, it is only a feeling."

"Maybe you're right, Carsi," he said, and when he said nothing else the countess left the church.

She did not return to her home. Instead she followed the road to the southern wall and climbed the ladder to it's top. The cobblestone walls of Melon Town were nothing impressive, only ten blocks wide and twenty blocks high, but they were comforting to be on top of. She said her hellos to the soldiers walking the wall and made her way to the southeast corner. There she climbed the watchtower.

"G'evenin', Countess," said a soldier she did not recognize. Parner had hired several new players recently and she had not met them all yet. "Come up to enjoy the view?"

"Yes, that is exactly what I'm here for," she said and looked out at the wide, endless plains of Sedweest. As she peered southeast, out towards what was Eastip, she began to feel another feeling in her gut. This feeling was not about the sheep farmer. It was an unknown feeling of dread.


	5. Parner (II)

Parner was told to wait on the bottom floor of the King's Tower for Shul whilst Pomfy went to tell the king of their discovery. He had wanted to go with Pomfy, to make sure he was credited with finding the nether portal, but Pomfy insisted that he would tell the king all about it.

He waited at the foot of the spiral stone slab staircase for an entire night, staring upwards at all of the banners and paintings and colored windows. It was an incredibly boring wait, and several times Parner had wanted to leave the tower to go find Morned. Surely the farmer would have found a buyer by now, and if he hadn't, they would never find one. And that meant their time in Lazuline was a waste, and they should return to Melon Town.

As he waited, he listened to the whispers of other players walking past him and around the tower. They whispered of an attack and of bandits, of a portal and something or someone called Holkross. Parner had never heard of Holkross, but he hoped that he wasn't taking credit for finding the portal in the vault. That was his glory, his claim to fame. He liked Pomfy, but he didn't completely trust the Lazuline soldier with the story of how he found it.

Shortly before the sun began to shine through a small, blue dyed glass window, Parner heard the nasally voice of Shul call down to him from the stairs. "Oh, you're still here," the king's assistant said. "I was certain you would have left by now."

"Well, I was about to. You were taking ages up there," said Parner. "What did you find out about our wool? Is the king going to buy it?"

"Wool? Oh, right. That was the reason I went to talk to him in the first place, wasn't it? I guess I forgot about it, got sidetracked by some things," he said and Parner could feel the top of his head start to boil. "I'll get that sorted out eventually. But first I must tend to the king's business."

Parner was gritting his teeth so tightly that he was sure the grinding and squeaking was coming through on his microphone. He had been waiting for well over two days now, time that he could have been spending enjoying Lazuline City, or maybe helping Morned in the market. All this time standing around had been for nothing. Sure, he had helped to find the hidden portal, but that did not mean anything. The vault had already been emptied and the culprit had died trying to escape.

He wondered what he would tell Carsi when he and Morned returned to Melon Town. She would be upset, and understandably so. Maybe they could find some other place to sell the wool, someplace far from Lazuline City where he would not have to deal with annoying kings or their worms. Perhaps in Tippington or Tiport. Tiport would be best, it's port brought in traders from all around the world. Not that Lazuline's market didn't, but Tiport was smaller and he would have an easier time finding a buyer.

"King's business? Don't you think his missing roofs are business? Doesn't he get rained on up there?"

"No, of course he doesn't. There is a layer of dirt above him," Shul said and Parner rolled his eyes behind his computer. "And this is much more important business. Business regarding the safety of this city!"

"Well, then go on about your business then," said Parner and he turned towards the tunnel that linked to the barracks. "I'm going to find my sheep farmer and I'm going home!"

"You can't do that, Melon. The king's business is with _you_ ," the worm said and Parner stopped. The king wanted him? Was he getting his reward for finding the portal? Had he done something illegal in Lazuline and not noticed? He turned back around to face Shul, who was now holding a book in his hand.

"With me? What exactly does he want?"

Shul was quiet for a moment, presumably reading something in his book. "Have you ever heard the name Caulrin?" he asked and Parner said that he did not. Or he could have, but it was not an uncommon sounding name. He had heard similar names like Palrin and Sulrin, so he could have heard it but not remembered it. "Well, that's understandable. Not many people knew him by that name. How about Holkross?"

"Actually, I think I have. People have been talking about someone called Holkross all day," said Parner. "But I had never heard of them before that. Why? Who are these people?"

Shul pulled his book out again and was silent. Parner was not sure if he should say something to break the silence, or if he should turn and run out of the palace and not stop until he was back with Morned. "I think we should go and see the king now. I'll explain then," he said and started up the stone slabs. Parner took that as his cue to follow the player, even though he really wanted not to.

Parner looked down as he spiraled upwards to the top of the King's Tower. The floor was getting farther and farther away. He was not used to being this high off the ground. At Melon Town he patrolled the walls often, but they were not nearly as tall as this. Why did the king need to live in such a high up place?

At the top of the tower they came to an oak door surrounded by sideways facing oak logs. The logs were then surrounded by blocks of lapis lazuli and quartz. "Alright, wait out here a moment whilst I talk to the king." _Great, more waiting_. Shul disappeared into the room and moments later several players left. Once the players were down the spiral staircase, Shul returned and told him to come in.

The king was crouched over his throne, a quartz stair surrounded by lapis blocks arranged to look like a massive chair. On both sides of the throne were lapis pillars extending from the stone brick floor to the dirt ceiling. Daggeff himself looked nothing like Parner had imagined him. He looked like any other player; light skin and dark hair, dark green eyes and a blue shirt and bluer trousers. If Parner had seen him amongst a crowd, he would have assumed him to be an ordinary player.

"This is the soldier from Melon, Your Highness," said Shul as Parner approached the throne. Parner crouched to simulate a bow, he thought that was appropriate.

"The one that found that portal in my vault, eh? How is it that you found it and all of my men couldn't? Sometimes I question why I even hired them," the king said, his voice was not entirely hoarse but not entirely smooth. It was a nice mix of the two, pleasant to listen to without making him want to sleep. "Either way, I'd like to thank you. Shul, give the soldier his reward."

Shul approached Parner and drew an enchanted iron sword. For a moment, Parner thought the worm was going to attack him, but realized that the sword was the reward when Shul threw it at his feet. "Holy creeper holes!" he said when he read the sword's enchantment. "Did you just have this thing laying around? Or did you make it specifically for me?" The enchantment was a great enchantment, but only for killing monsters. Against other players, it was as good as any other iron sword.

"Erm, well, it was crafted a long time ago. But you're the first player to wield it," said the king. "Smite III will do you good. You are happy with your reward, I hope?"

"Yeah, I'm happy with it," said Parner, which was true. It would help him fight off zombies and skeletons when he was on guard duty back in Melon Town. They were sometimes a real problem, even claiming the lives of several guards in the past years. The previous captain had died to a zombie, or that was the story they had told Carsi anyway. "I was just wondering why it has this specific enchantment. Did you get it randomly in an enchantment table?" With iron so rare, people usually did not take the chance of putting random enchantments on tools and armor. They generally enchanted books first so they would know exactly what they were getting.

"You're a suspicious little Melon, aren't you?" said the king. "I'll tell you the truth of it. We enchanted that sword specifically for you, with that specific enchantment, because you will soon be needing it."

Parner knew that something smelled like an elder guardian. "Needing it? For what?"

"Before I tell you that, maybe I should tell you a little story. A story of the past. Or rather, Shul will tell you. He's my lorekeeper after all," said King Daggeff. _Oh great, I get to hear this guy talk again._ _I hope it's not a long story, I don't want to stand around for another day_.

"Yes, it might clear some things up for him, Your Highness," said the worm. "I assume you know of the Enderlord. Everyone on this server has at least heard of him. Before the War of the End, everyone was trying to come up with the ultimate strategy or weapon to claim dominance of the world. Some created new TNT cannon designs that could fire many blocks at a time, and farther than the ones generally used at the time. Some thought up new combat techniques, like the Sand King's Wall of Swords. But one player thought to go beyond that, to bend the server's uniqueness against itself. Parner, what do you know of the additions to this world, the ones that are not part of the regular game?"

"Additions? You mean like the thing that makes us have to sleep?" he asked, and Shul nodded. "That's it I guess. Oh, and temperature. We need to make sure we don't get too hot or cold. But that's usually easy here."

"Those are only two additions, and they, along with thirst, are easy for players to discover. If those needs are not met, the players will suffer. But there are some additions that are well hidden, added by the One for players to find. Magical additions."

"What, you mean like magic spells and stuff?" asked Parner.

"Something like that. But the addition I'm getting to is not a simple spell, it's more of a ritual. It was discovered by a player, a player who apparently had too much time on his hands. People said he was on the server all year long, never taking a break or going offline. He would experiment on other players, casting them into lava and trying to save them through different ways, sending players flying into the sky with TNT and having them fall to their deaths in an attempt to overcome the limits of gravity. But one day he discovered something that was so powerful that it would change the server entirely."

"And that was?"

"Immortality," the king answered for Shul. "This server's world is built around permanent death. People work together on this server to create communities, cities, and kingdoms, all in the attempt to keep themselves safe. They know that outside of those communities there is danger, not only from monsters, but other players. If they had no fear of death, they would likely live on their own, hoarding whatever treasures they have in hidden chests. It would be just like any other Minecraft server."

"People would have no reason to follow laws. Griefer's could not be stopped, if they were killed they would simply come back and go back to what they were doing," said Shul, continuing for the king. "But this player's discovery was going to change all that. Caulrin was the player's name. When people first heard of him, he was doing great things. He was remarkably gifted at persuasion, and had gathered an army of great proportions. It was his army that had purged the bandits from Sedweest in the first centuries of the world, and for that he was made the first king of it all."

"The first king of Sedweest?" asked Parner. "How are you king now, King Daggeff? Did you kill him? But he had immortality, or so you say, so that doesn't make sense."

"Caulrin was destroyed by the Enderlord," said Shul.

"In his time, Sedweest was a land of many separate communities," King Daggeff said. "Most of them were small towns with only a few buildings, but some grew large enough that they were considered kingdoms. What we call Carrot now was once the Gold Kingdom, the northwestern portion of Breezelyn was the Iron Kingdom and rivaled with the Gold, and all of the North Forest was it's own kingdom, a kingdom of bandits and griefers. There were also much smaller realms, but they have likely been forgotten by history."

"Caulrin's discovery was coveted by all," explained the king's assistant. "The Forest King's army descended on what is now Lapis, slaughtering all who stood in their way. Caulrin and his army fled south, but the Forest followed him. The Iron King agreed to take Calurin in and protect him, and soon all of the South joined and defeated the Forest, sending them back North to their wooden kingdom. And the Iron King and Golden King, who once hated each other, decided that it was best for Sedweest if it was united under one kingdom and one king. They made Caulrin their king, and the realm saw one hundred years of peace.

"But when Caulrin was destroyed by the Enderlord, and he waged his war on the world, a forgotten hero took the book which held Caurlin's ritual instructions and hid it. To this day, no one has been able to find it. But we think it is time that it is found. What was once a catalyst of war and worry may yet be again."

"I'm not sure what to make of all that," said Parner, his mind was a jumble of names and kingdoms and nonsense. "Am I supposed to remember all of this or what?"

"All you need to remember is the importance of this book. If it falls into the wrong hands, the world will end," said the king.

"And why are you trying to find it now? Seems like something that should have been found a long time ago if it means someone can live forever and end the world and all that jazz."

"Because recent events have shown us that the book is not safe. Not only was my vault broken into, but Lazuline City has been attacked. Whilst you and Pomfy were messing around, the faire quarter was assaulted by players in grey armor. At first, I thought they were only bandits that were, for some reason, wearing the Enderlord's color. But then I was told that they had entered the city through a nether portal, just as the thief did in the vault. No ordinary bandits could have done that. Our nether is too protected." Parner's thoughts instantly went to Morned and that girl. He hoped that the sheep farmer had not been harmed. Carsi would surely demote him if he had.

"Yes, it should have been impossible. Pomfy told us that he let the Blue Flame's name slip to you," said Shul and Parner remembered what the soldier had said back in the vault. "So, I don't think it'd do any more harm to tell you what they are. They are the king's secret army in the nether. They are forever guarding all of the nether that can be connected to Lazuline City. No players should have been able to set up a portal near enough, or precise enough, to enter the vault."

"I choose my Blue Flames from the best of the best. They are players who have no lives outside of this server and are therefore dedicated to it," said King Daggeff, who then stood from his throne. "For them to be avoided, or killed, or whatever happened, an elite force must have done this. And after the attack on the faire quarter, we realized just what this elite force was."

"When I asked you earlier if you had heard the name Holkross, I was surprised to hear that you didn't know anything about him," said Shul. "Holkross was one the Enderlord's three generals, and he was the meanest of them. But fortunately for the world, he was slain by Mikyal at the Battle of High Landing. But like the Enderlord himself, Holkross had three servants below him. Two were slain after their lord's death, but one escaped and has not been heard from. Until yesterday.

"The attack in the faire quarter did not go well for these griefers. Our army destroyed them and none survived. After the battle was over and the heads of the fallen were collected, one was found with a near forgotten name; Terrigo, the third captain of Holkross. A servant of the Enderlord was in our city, attacking its people, and presumably was behind the vault's break in. And the scariest part of this is Terrigo would have known about Caulrin's book."

"He was more than likely seeking it," said the king. "If Terrigo had found the book, he could have not only brought back his General, but the Enderlord himself."

"Alright then, that's bad. But if this Terrigo is dead, and all the other guys that attacked died too, then what's the big deal?" asked the Melon captain.

"Others will come," King Daggeff said and walked behind the pillar to the left of his throne. Parner heard the pushing of a button and the retracting of a piston, and then the block below the king's feet was pulled in and Daggeff fell.

"Your Highness!" Shul called and ran to where the king had vanished beneath the floor.

"Sh- should we follow him?"

"Of course we should follow him! He is our king! What if he's in danger?" shouted Shul as he stood on the block.

"Danger? I think he purposely went down there. He knew what he was doing," Parner said and Shul pushed the button, falling into the hole as well.

The Melon captain walked to the block next, and stood there for a moment, gazing at the button. Shul was no longer there to keep him from leaving, and neither was the king. Pomfy had left him shortly after they had found the portal in the vault. There was no one holding him there, he could leave and go find Morned. He could go back to Melon Town.

Parner pressed the button and fell into a deep, dark shaft.


	6. Maffis (II)

They had found two more mounts hidden at the bottom of Shorebreeze's mine. Turgle, the town's innkeeper, had watched their owner hide them there before he hid himself beneath the cobblestone street. Now they all three had mounts and their trip would be much quicker. The boy Durgey had taken to calling his brown-spotted white horse Spot and Turgle had named his mule Dandelion after his lost inn. Maffis' black steed remained nameless, despite Durgey trying several times to convince Maffis to name it Nightmare.

Now on mounts, they were taking the Breeze Road north to Melon Town, the capital of Melon county. Maffis and Turgle had debated for over a day on whether they should go to the king in Lazuline City, Boring, or Melon Town. They quickly decided that the king would do nothing for them, he would not believe them that the Deadforce had returned; Maffis did not believe it himself. Turgle's only reason for riding to Boring was that Dull was at the opposite shore to the supposed enemy, but Maffis convinced him that Melon Town was the better option, assuring him that he could find a place for both him and Durgey with his connections. He did not tell him what the connections were, other than that he knew the countess.

"Is Melon Town a big, pretty town, or a dump like the last one?" asked Durgey sometime after they had left Shorebreeze.

"Excuse me! Shorebreeze is, or was, not a dump!" said Turgle. Maffis thought the player sounded much older than him, by at least twenty real-world years. "What you saw were its ruins! Before the attack it was a lovely town, picturesque nearly! But those fiends ruined it all. Even my beautiful inn," his voice saddened and now he sounded like a sad old puppy. "Are you certain we'll be safe from the Deadforce in Melon, Maffis?"

"The Deadforce no longer exists outside the name of the island the Eye's tower sits upon," he assured Turgle. "Shorebreeze was attacked by griefers, not some force of the past. They may have been inspired by them, as many have before, and they will be dealt with quickly."

"Breezelyn's count won't do anything. He never has before. Whenever bandits or any gang shows up in his land, he just sits and waits for them to either go away or make his people angry enough that they take care of the problem for him. But he won't have any people this time, not if they keep dying," the older player said and Maffis nodded. He knew what it was like to watch all of his people die around him. He knew what it was like to know that there would never be justice for them.

"So? Is it one of the big cities?" asked Durgey with a lingering whine.

"It's a big town. No one would really call it a city, but the last time I was there around six hundred players called it home," said Maffis, thinking back to the town's many streets and alleys. How many years had it been since he stumbled upon that ruined field, not yet cleaned up by the Beautifiers? Seventy years? Eighty? He had lost track.

Back then the regions of Sedweest were referred to by their old names, but the land now called Melon had never had a name of it's own. The Forest King had claimed it during the second Bandit War, but even then it was only _that bit of the plains in the Forest Kingdom_. When Daggeff separated Sedweest into the counties to make his rule easier, he named Maffis a count, knowing full well who he was. The county was named Melon after the town, and then nothing changed for years.

"I knew it! It's just a dinky little town!" squealed the boy. "Please Maffis! Let's just go to a big city! A really big one with games and kings and knights and stuff! It looked so fun whenever my brother would go to places like that!"

"Durgey, there would be nothing for you to do there. You need to go somewhere that has a place for you, somewhere with work," explained Maffis with a sigh. "You can't play the games if you don't have any gold. You can't do _anything_ without gold, not even rent an apartment or buy a house. In Melon, whether it be Melon Town or Rind or some other smaller town, you will surely find a job. Once you've earned enough gold you can think about making a visit to Lazuline City."

"But I don't want a job! I just want to play Minecraft!" cried the young player, and Maffis could relate to that. The thought of ruling over others as a king or count had excited him once, but eventually it became more of a headache than it was fun. As a bandit hunter he freely roamed the Bandit Lands, cutting down trees and mining stone, building temporary houses and essentially playing the game how it was meant to be played. But Durgey could not do that on this server. He would not last to his second year.

"What do you like to do in Minecraft, Durgey?" Turgle asked the same question Maffis was about to.

"On some servers I play minigames and stuff," the boy said. "but in survival, I guess I like to do everything. Mining, chopping down trees, exploring, fishing, fighting bad guys. Once I even got to the End to fight the enderdragon. But then i died," he said and Maffis had to stifle a laugh. Something about the way the boy said the last part was hilarious to him, and he imagined Durgey going on a fantastic and difficult quest to fight the dragon, only to have it all end abruptly.

"You don't need to worry about the dragon in this world," he said, trying to hide his amusement. "He was slain many years ago." Maffis remembered seeing the dragon's head mounted above its slayer's throne. "But you could do the others, particularly the fighting part. If these Deadforce imitators cause more trouble in Sedweest, even Melon will be increasing their army." _Imitators_. He forced himself to say that word. The Enderlord was dead. The Deadforce had disbanded with Holkross' death. These people were mere copycats. "But you won't just be fighting monsters. Soldiers fight players too. Real intelligence is much trickier to counter than the artificial kind."

"Yeah, I know. My brother would always get into fights and stuff. The guys would jump around like bunnies!" the boy said and had his horse jump around to show what he meant. "But I guess the other guy was better at jumping around than he was. You know, 'cause my brother died," he said and once again Maffis had to hold in his laugher. Death was a sad thing on a server where there were no respawns, but the boy had a strange way of speaking about it. His brother had likely raged and thrown a fit at his death, but Durgey did not seem to care about it at all.

"There is always someone better, Durgey, no matter how good you get. Even the Enderlord, the player who everyone thought was unbeatable, met his match," said Maffis. Mikyal had never seemed a great warrior, even in the later days of the old world. Yet at the end he had proven himself to be the greatest.

"What's the Enderlord?" Durgey asked and Maffis instantly thought of hundreds of answers, but he did not know which was the right one to use. The Enderlord had been so many things, so many terrible and great things.

"The most infamous player to ever walk this server," said the old innkeeper. "He was awful, just awful. His goal was to conquer all three continents of the server and be emperor over everything, he even managed to get all of Sedweest before he was defeated.

"He was the leader of the Deadforce, the players who never slept. Some players say that he was an admin that grew mad from his powers. Some say he was a hacker. But most people think that he knew how to abuse the many glitches in the game. He glitched his sword into having impossible enchantments. His body was under perpetual potion buffs. The Enderlord was almost the end of this server as we know it."

"He's dead, so there's no need to worry about him either," said Maffis. Even after nearly one hundred years, talk of the Enderlord still soured in his stomach. Just being in the man's presence had made made his spine tremble. His persuasion skills were unmatched, almost unnatural.

Before the Kingdom of Sedweest, before the end of the war, Sedweest had been a total mess of TNT craters and burned castles and towns. Player heads littered the roads and fields. Food had become incredibly scarce and starvation had become more of a problem than it had at the start of the world before any farms had been set up. Kingdoms were turning on kingdoms, friends were turning on friends. It was chaos. It was exactly what the Enderlord wanted.

"How'd he die?"

"He hit 'Q'," said Maffis and drove his horse past Durgey and Turgle. He was finished with the conversation.

"Uh, what does that mean?" he heard the boy ask. Turgle answered him, "He accidentally dropped his sword. In his final battle he met his equal, Mikyal the Bear. He was either overcome with the excitement of the challenge or the fear of death and hit the wrong key on his keyboard. That was the last mistake he made."

The perfect mistake, one that would never happen again. The Enderlord was known for being meticulous with his planning. Even in battles he had every one of his moves planned out. If Mikyal had not slain him there and the Enderlord reclaimed his sword, the battle would have been over and the Enderlord would be the ruler of the entire world.

"That's really stupid. It would have been cooler if he had died in an epic battle with lighting and thunder all around him. And then at the end he would cry and ask the guy fighting him not to kill him, but then at the end he kills him anyway. Wouldn't that have been cooler?" asked Durgey and this time Turgle laughed. Maffis did not.

"No it wouldn't have, Durgey," he said to the boy from far ahead of them, not looking back at him. "This isn't just some fairy tale where the good guy was sure to win. This server means a lot to the players who play on it. The fight between Mikyal and the Enderlord was the final chance to have their world, this world that they put so much of their time and love into, saved."

"Jeeze, it's just Minecraft. I don't cry when I lose my worlds," said Durgey and Maffis gritted his teeth.

"Yeah, Durgey. It's just Minecraft," the bandit hunter said, all the humor having left him. "Come on now. We should be close to the Breezelyn-Ston border by now. There will most likely be an inn on it and we can take a break from riding."

"Oh I do hope it's a nice inn, Maffis," said Turgle, his sad puppy voice having grown into a tired old dog's voice. "We can get some nice, saturating food and maybe some potions to ward off the nasty effects of not sleeping on the road. I hate nausea, I really do. Terrible condition to travel with, you never know if you're travelling straight on the road or veering way off of it."

"I don't think there is anything to counter the nausea, Turgle," Maffis said, thinking that an innkeeper should know something like that. Milk cured most potion effects, but did not remove the effects caused by lack of sleep. "But we can get some potions of swiftness to counteract the slowness. I'll buy some for you, Durgey." His little stack of gold nuggets was not very large, and he hoped it was enough to get him to Melon. There he could dig up his old chest to fund his trip back to the South Tip.

"Do you think those guys are going to the inn as well?" the boy asked and Maffis looked back to him. He was looking slightly to his left, and when Maffis followed to where he was looking he stopped his horse. "What is it Maffis?"

"Both of you, get off your horses and go bury yourselves in the dirt," he said and Turgle dismounted. Durgey stayed on Spot. "Durgey, please. Get off your horse."

"I'm not burying myself in dirt, Maffis. Only noobs made dirt tombs," he said with a giggle.

Maffis looked back to where Durgey had been looking and watched as five players drew nearer. From where he was standing he could see that four of them wore mismatched leather armor and carried swords of some kind. _This far north_? _Why are they getting so brave_? "Durgey, do as I say or we'll turn around and go back to Shorebreeze," he said, using his adult voice.

"Fine," the boy sighed and jumped off his horse. Maffis watched as both of them dug separate holes and disappeared under a block of dirt.

They were looking directly at him. Even if he would have hid in a hole with Durgey and Turgle, the three dissimilar horses above them would have given them away. He had no choice but to face them, whether that meant he had to fight them or persuade them to leave. Maffis opened his inventory and put his enchanted bow on his hotbar and switched out his normal sword for Ironwill.

As they grew nearer he could see that the majority of their leather was undyed, except for two that had orange leggings and one with a blue tunic. The two with dyed trousers carried plain shields and plain stone swords, but the blue tunic and the one in all plain leather both carried shields with a blue fielded arms decorated with a downward facing orange triangle. They bore the colors of Carrot, but none of them were Carrot soldiers.

The fifth player had the skin of a girl with dark skin and hair with an outfit of white and green. She wore no armor and carried no sword or shield. The girl was a prisoner.

Maffis stood still and watched the bandits approach. He kept his hand empty, but was ready to switch to his bow or sword the instant one was needed. "Ho ho, friend! I didn't know anyone else was supposed to be patrolling this area!" said the bandit in all brown armor when they were only fifteen blocks away from him.

They were confusing him for a fellow bandit. The bandit hunters of South Tip did not farm cows for leather, they did not need to. It was more convenient to scavenge the corpses of fallen bandits, and the mismatched armor acted as a kind of camouflage around them. With his blue helm and boots, brown tunic, and Breezelyn grey trousers, Maffis looked like any bandit. He could use this. "I guess I wandered a bit too far from my area. How's the griefing and pillaging?"

"Pillaging?" asked the blue shirted bandit. Maffis took him for the squad's leader by the way he spoke. "What happened to the other two who were with you? Were they your prisoners?"

"Yeah, I was taking them to the boss. I just had to hide them in case you all were soldiers," he said, playing along. There had been rumors in the south of a so-called bandit-king, and this was his chance to find out a bit about him.

"What would he want with prisoners? We need people to join up voluntarily, else they'll just end up runnin' away," the supposed leader grumbled. "And you're moving a bit far north to be headin' to him. Unless you mean to row all the way there from Stonport. They'd be pretty sour about you bringing a prisoner to the General."

 _Row_? _General_? How large was this bandit community that they needed to give out ranks like that? For as long as Maffis could remember they had operated under one true leader, and the rest were only grunts that carried out his will. The only time they had ever been organized was when the Enderlord sat on his throne. And where in Sedweest would they need to row? A river? Across the sea? Maffis hoped it was not the latter. "What about you? Isn't that your prisoner?" he asked, and he could hear the girl whimpering.

"Yeah, but she's not for the general," he laughed. "Stupid girl thought she could save herself by telling us about a rich friend. Well, she's safe for now at least. But once we get her friend's gold, well, then fate takes charge." The girl whimpered some more.

"She shouldn't have done that." Maffis' finger on his mouse wheel started to twitch. If it twitched too far up or down he would reveal his weapon.

"Yeah, she shouldn't 've. Too bad for her, eh?" Maffis' finger twitched upwards and his sword swung into view. "What the-? What is this?"

"Where did you get an enchanted iron sword?" asked the brown bandit, but his answer was not the one he expected to get. Maffis charged at him, striking him with Ironwill and sending him flying over ten blocks back. He ran around in circles, bouncing all over as the fire from Ironwill's Fire Aspect did its work.

The other three bandits backed off and the girl ran behind Maffis, knowing that he was there to protect her. "You! Get back here girl!" the blue bandit cried, but the girl did not move from behind her protector.

"That sword that hit me," said the brown bandit. "It's the one the General told us about. Ironwill, he called it. This guy is bloody Maffis!"

At that, Maffis shot four arrows straight into the air and charged at the brown bandit. He tried to block him with his shield, but one of the arrows fell down on him and he exploded into a mass of armor and food and dirt. He swirled around and struck one of the two orange trousered bandits setting them aflame and flying. The other tried to strike him, but he jumped out of the way and hit him as well.

Whilst the two orange bandits were dancing in their fires, Maffis turned to the blue bandit. "Who is your general?!" he screamed and the girl screamed at his screaming. She ran off towards his companions and hid behind the horses.

"Why, Maffis, haven't you heard?" the blue bandit chuckled and his orange companions, who were now less heated, regrouped behind his back. "Holkross is back. He misses you, you know. That's why we were out here. To find you and bring you back to your long, lost friend."

Maffis thought his heart was going to stop for a moment, but instead it's beat increased. Holkross was dead. "That's a lie!" he shouted and charged at the bandit. The blue shirt dodged him and Maffis' sword sliced through the leftmost orange bandit behind him, killing him. He spun and slashed at the other, and he too was nothing more than a pile of items atop a head.

"It seems General Holkross did not exaggerate your skill," the blue bandit laughed and Maffis nearly charged him again, but stopped when the player threw down his sword. "Did he also not exaggerate your honor?"

Maffis stood still, looking at the sword spinning on the grass in front of him. He gritted his teeth and looked to the ground. "It's true then. Holkross is alive. How?"

"Ah, but that is something I don't know," he said and went to pick up his friends' heads. "But he is back, and he expects to see you soon. I hope to be there when you meet." When he had collected all three heads he sprinted off into the distance and vanished into an unloaded chunk.

Maffis was still staring at the bandit's sword when the girl came up behind him. "Th-thank you," she sniffled. He did not turn to her. "I should reward you for saving my life. Please, help me to my friend's city and I'll give you anything you want."

He picked up the sword and, ignoring the girl, walked to the naked dirt blocks that concealed Durgey and Turgle. "Oh, it's just you, Maffis!" said Durgey after he had let out a squeal when Maffis had uncovered him.

"Come on out, Turgle. They're gone," he said and finally turned to the girl. "I don't need a reward. I just need to get these two somewhere safe." _And I need to get myself somewhere safe from Holkross_.

"But my friend is rich! She told me so! You could have anything!" she insisted.

"I can already have everything I want. Gold isn't necessary for that," he said and helped dig out a staircase for Turgle.

"Well, can you at least help me get there? I'll hire you as a guard. My friend can pay you." she said. Maffis could not tell how old she was. She sounded young, but it was harder to tell with girls than it was with men and boys.

He wanted to say no. He wanted to tell her again that he didn't need any gold. But he was sworn to protect. "Fine. A half stack of gold nuggets'll get you to Lazuline City."

"Wait! We're actually gonna go to a city now?" Durgey was jumping around him in a circle. "Yes! Yes! Yes!"

"No, Durgey. I'm taking this, er, girl..."

"My name's Zelnya. I think that's how to pronounce it anyway. Or is it Zeel-nee-ya? Anyway, it's spelled Z-E-L-N-Y-A, so I'm gonna go with Zel-nya."

"Right. I'm Maffis, this here is Turgle, and the bouncing rabbit is Durgey."

"City! City! City!" the boy said, still bouncing and wasting all of his hunger.

"Durgey, stop that!" he said and the boy ceased his jumping, but continued to walk in a circle. "We are stopping in Melon first, and I'm leaving you and Turgle there. This girl, Zelnya, has a friend that she can live with in Lazuline. You don't."

"Actually, I don't think she called her city that," the girl said and Maffis turned to look at her. "It sounded like, uh, Thorn-something…"

"Thornport?" asked the bandit hunter. "Well then. I guess we won't be going to Lazuline then after all," he said with the tinge of annoyance on his words.

"Miss, what are you doing in Sedweest if your friend is on Oheest?" asked Turgle.

"I don't understand what that is. I just started playing on this server today," said the girl.

 _A newspawn. Another newspawn for me to babysit_. "In this world there are three main continents. Sedweest is the continent we are on right now. Oheest to the east of Sedweest, and is many, many kilometers away. It'll take nearly a year for us to get there," he said, and jumped onto the back of his horse. It was then he realized that the girl did not have a horse of her own, and once again they would be moving at a snail's pace.

"Oh, well can you take me there?" she asked.

"No, I will not leave Sedweest. I didn't even want to leave South Tip, but I had to for Durgey. I will take you to Tiport, a port town on the shore of Eastip. There I'll pay for someone to take row you over to Thornport."

"Tiport is a small city, Durgey. I think you'll like it there," he heard Turgle whisper and once again the boy began to jump and bounce and drive a nail into Maffis' head.


	7. Carsi (II)

It was still night outside when Carsi stood from her bed. Her energy was filled, but she was hoping to stay asleep for a little longer to keep it filled throughout the day. But between the noise coming from outside her window and the countess' curiosity, she was forced to get up and investigate the commotion.

"Good evening, Countess," Geena greeted her when she left her room. "A bit of a ruckus out there, huh?"

"Yes, and it's annoying," said Carsi. "If its Parner pulling some stunt again, I'll have to give him another mission, one that'll take him a year or two to finish. Maybe I'll send him to the south shore of Sudthrend, that'll give us some silence for awhile." Parner was a good guy, but he was proving himself to be a lousy captain. His sarcastic remarks and overall tone were constantly getting him into trouble. The last trouble he had caused was when he accidentally insulted a sergeant, which ended in a duel. One of the soldiers would have been dead by the end of it if Carsi had not intervened. Afterwards she sent him with the sheep farmer to get rid of him for awhile.

"I don't' think the captain is back yet, actually," said Geena to Carsi's surprise. She had expected both Parner and Morned's return two days ago. What could be holding them back this late? She did not mind Parner's tardiness, nor did she worry about him, he was the captain and could handle himself. Morned, however, was important to Melon Town. Others could shear and slaughter his sheep, but the farmer played a role in the town that no other could fill. He was a ladies man, but he never went too far with his courting and always made the female players feel good about themselves. He was an optimist, and even when the town was near starvation seven years ago, he had everyone believing that it would all turn out okay, despite there being no real sign of anything changing for the better. If Morned would have been in Melon Town when Maffis left, he would have been made count instead of Carsi.

"Well, someone is stirring up excitement," Carsi said and left her house to investigate the noise. The street outside her home was mostly empty, but a pair of players were making their way towards Stone Street.

At the intersection of Count and Stone she could see a large crowd of players all huddled around a point. "What's all the excitement?" she called to the two players on the street. The noise was so loud that she had to nearly scream for them to hear her.

One of the players looked at her, then back to their companion before talking. _They don't want to talk to me._ "Enterlan's back from his patrol. Apparently his party was attacked!" he shouted back to her. Carsi recognized him as a wheatfield worker, but did not know his name. "He's telling the story now," the worker said and Carsi sprinted towards Stone Street.

 _Enterlan_. She didn't know why she was running. It was Enterlan, and he was not known for his honesty. He would twist and grow every tale of battle to make him into a hero, or take credit for the ideas of his subordinates or other sergeants from other counties. And yet she was running to hear his tale.

The crowd was a hundred strong when she reached it, a mob of screaming and shouting people that she could not name or place. They were all cheering or making indiscernible noises that made Carsi want to rip her earphones out. But then Enterlan, standing in the very center of the crowd, shouted even louder and they quieted. "Now, are you all ready to hear this terrible tale? This tale of how I escaped with my life after I watched my brothers fall to evil right in front of my eyes?" the soldier said and the crowd cheered _yes_. "We were in some nowhere town on the coast, taking a vacation of sorts, when it all happened. A rain of death and despair! It was as if fate frowned upon my friends as I watched all of them die in an instant, all together in one violent explosion. But I did not let their deaths shock me! No! I readied my sword and-"

"Enterlan!" shouted the countess and the soldier shut his mouth.

"Countess," he said and she pictured him as a wolf tucking its tail between its legs. The crowd parted and she approached him. Even his skin was smug looking with the black pixels of his mouth curving upward in one corner to give him a smirk. "M'lady, I was just about to tell these people of the horrible deeds I've witnessed, and the heroic ones that I dealt after. Savages befell a small fishing village on the coast. It was truly terrible, the entire village was destroyed and everyone was killed, but I, being the hero that I am, made it back safely to tell the tale!" he said and everyone in the crowd cheered, except for Carsi.

 _No. We can't afford to be attacked. There isn't enough iron to arm even a quarter of our soldiers_. "Did anyone come back with you?"

"No, M'lady. Not a one of our people managed to survive."

"And I assume you then slaughtered all the attackers?"

"Well, no. But…"

"Then you are no hero, Enterlan. You are a coward running from your duty and a liar," the countess said, loud enough for half the town to hear. "And why was I not informed of this attack first? Instead of coming to me or Geena I find you out here, praising yourself like a priest does for the administrators." She knew why. If Enterlan had done the right thing and came to her, she would have kept it quiet until an investigation had been made. He would not have been able to boast about his false glories until she decided on how to retaliate. "Come with me, Enterlan."

He obeyed and she lead him to her house. Inside Geena was still standing outside of Carsi's bedroom door. "Enterlan. That explains quite a bit," she said with a girlish giggle. "What exactly did you do now to bring attention to yourself?"

"I don't think he did anything except run away," said the countess. "Now, tell me what happened. No embellishing. No exaggerations." She hoped he would tell her that there had been no real attack, that it had all been an exaggeration and all that had attacked the fishing village had been a few monsters. Melon had no real enemies, though she was cautious of the Forest. Bandits were never this far north. Monsters were the only real threat, and they were easily dealt with.

"Well, me and my squad, ya know, Tenic and Fusilidae and Argofur and Rumt, were all patrollin' the coast," he said, his speech was suddenly far less sophisticated now that he was not in front of his peers. "We decided to take a rest at a little fishin' village, I don't remember the name, it was pretty new I think." Carsi knew of the village. Seedspits they had named it. A small group of players had asked her permission seven years ago when the food was running short for settlement on the coast. They had apparently been prosperous with their fishing, and the last she had heard they had grown to support sixty players. "The tavern wasn't the nicest, it was basically just a cobblestone box with fences for windows. All they had to eat was fish, nothin' filling like steak or pork, but they did have water breathing potions, though that was no use to us."

"After we rested, we all went to the docks for a spot of fishin'. I mean, we had just walked all the way from the Forest border to Eastip's, so I think we deserved a nice break, and what better way than with some fishin', ya know? Argofur and Tenic were catchin' regular fish and salmon left and right, but bein' born with all this natural luck, I was only catchin' the rare stuff like pufferfish and I even got a saddle," he said and tossed the saddle to Carsi, possibly in an attempt to appease her. "But I guess the lord or whatever 'e was didn't like us taking up space on his dock, so he asked us to leave." Carsi had raised a player named Nilkomin to be the lord of Seedspits. Of the group that came to her seeking settlement, he had seemed the most responsible.

"But before we could leave, we had to dodge a barrage of TNT blocks that were flying into the city!" _Flying TNT_? _TNT canons_? It wasn't an attack by monsters then. These were players. For this she would need to send a large squad east to deal with whoever these players were. It had to be bandits, Melon had no enemies. "Before my eyes my entire team was obliterated by a single blast, leavin' me to defend the town, which of course I was up to…"

"No embellishing," reminded Geena.

"Well, I'm just sayin' that I was ready to fight. That was, until I saw the enemy force charge into the town. These weren't a bunch o' loosely coordinated thugs who were just there to cause grief. These were real soldiers, same as me!" _No soldiers would attack Melon! They had to be nothing but griefers!_ "They came in with their cyan trousers and their blue shields with the cyan 'X'! You know who these soldiers were, Carsi. They attacked us without cause!"

Carsi stared at him silently. A cyan 'X' was the mark of Eastip. Count Binchent had been the closest count to her, both in distance and relationship. He had always seemed so friendly, so willing to help with any struggle Melon had. This could not be true.

"Enterlan, think about what you're saying. Eastip soldiers attacked a Melon settlement? Could these have been well-seasoned bandits that were wearing the same colors?" asked Geena and a light shone in Carsi's heart. If Seedspits had been destroyed by bandits, it still would be terrible, but she much prefered that to Eastip. Otherwise this attack could lead to war. Wars lead to allegiances, some that would side with Eastip. Everyone hated bandits.

"Bandits? Yeah, that could be," he said. His smirking face did not match his attitude now, but Carsi hated it still. "But if they were bandits, they were the best fighting griefers I've ever met. I did try to fight them, that's no lie. But I was on my own against them, the village had no guard of their own yet. Twenty of them came on me and beat down on my shield. It didn't take long before it broke. It may have not been too heroic of me, but I ran. I didn't want to die. If the battle had been fair, if I had friends to help me, I would have stayed and fought to the death. But what was the point in dying if it wasn't a glorious death, one that people on the server would talk about for years to come? There was no one to see it, other than the enemy. So, I ran back here." Carsi believed him. Enterlan was a liar, but he wouldn't lie about running away, it would do nothing but prove him a coward.

"There were just so many of them. If they were bandits, how did that many of them manage to make it so far north? They'd've had to row way far out into the sea to not be noticed by us mainlanders, and they'd for sure be noticed by one of the sea-towers. I just…"

"You just what, Enterlan?" said Carsi.

"As terrible as it is, Countess, I believe in my deepest belief that these were soldiers. I don't know what we did or why Eastip would ever want to attack us, but I really feel that they did." Enterlan said and Carsi could feel her stomach knotting up again. It was the same feeling she felt on the wall several days ago, when she was looking southward towards Eastip. She did not believe in premonitions or anything of that sort, but she was starting to believe that she had felt something real that day. "They were ruthless too. I know that bandits like to destroy everything, ya know, but not like this. Bandits are there for fun, they laugh and mock when they kill. These players though, they did not seem to enjoy any of what they were doing. There was no laughter, there was no joy in it. They had been ordered to do this, I'm sure."

"Carsi, what do you make of this?" asked Geena.

Carsi sat behind her computer, her face in her hands and her heart in her throat. "Both of you, stay here. I need to speak with the priest," she said.

"The priest isn't going to do anything about this. All he's gonna do is pray to the admins!" said Enterlan, which was not wrong. But Carsi did not need Tellform to do anything. She only needed to speak with him.

"Watch him. If he tries to leave, call for help," Carsi said to Geena and left the house.

Outside the crowd had dispersed, leaving the street completely empty. They had most likely returned to their homes to get the last bit of sleep they could before the sun rose and work needed to be started. Her walk to the church was silent, but inside her mind was screaming hundreds of scenarios and results.

She found Tellform standing in the partially made redstone circle, just above the hopper. The circle was pathetic, just like she felt entering the church. They would finish it someday, if Darnilk would ever let her have more than a few pieces at a time. "Carsi," he said when she entered. "I fear that my feeling was correct."

"It was," she said and he moved to let her stand above the hopper. "A new settlement along the coast was attacked, presumably by bandits. One of our soldiers, a sergeant, survived, but he isn't so sure they were bandits. He thinks they were Eastip soldiers."

"Eastip, eh?" the priest said. He was holding a book and quill in his hands, writing whatever prayer he was writing to the admins. "And what do you believe, my countess?"

"It doesn't matter if they were bandits or Eastip, we will seek justice," she said. "And if it turns out to be Binchent, well, I think the admins will be on our side. We've done nothing wrong. He's the one attacking for no reason."

"No reason? Everyone has their reasons for attacking. A bandit's reason for brigandry is for plunder. A soldier's reason for attacking is to defend his realm. If this is Eastip's doing, they'll have some cause they believe in, something pushing them to war."

"And what would that be, Tellform?" asked Carsi.

"I do not know the count there as well as you, I'm afraid, so I would not be the best to guess."

"Well, then the best we can do is pray," said Carsi, pulling out her own blank book.

"I don't know if the admins can really even read our prayers," the priest said and turned from her. "We drop it into lava, believing that they go back and check the logs. But do they? Or are we just wasting leather making books that no one will ever read?"

"Sedweest has not seen a real war in nearly one hundred years. Surely that proves something," said Carsi as she began to write in her book. She wrote the same prayer she wrote everyday, but added a bit more, asking for more players to find Melon and be willing to enlist in her army. When she was done she dropped the book into the hopper, and soon after she heard the sound of it being incinerated in the lava below.

"This is just the beginning, my countess," Tellform said and made for the church's door. "Last year I received a letter beckoning me to the Eyes' tower. I had ignored it then, but I think now maybe I should go. Goodbye, Countess." Tellform left the church and closed the door behind him. Carsi followed him out, but when she went to call for him, no words came out. _He knows something is coming to Melon Town. He doesn't want to be here when it comes. And neither do I. But I have to be._


	8. Morned (II)

"What is it? I can't see!" complained Turfden in the darkness of Lazuline City's sewer. They were attempting to tunnel through one of the stone brick walls that encased them, but after breaking through six of the blocks they were stopped by something that would not break. "Tell me it's not obsidian, please tell me," he said.

"Well, if it is obsidian, that's not necessarily a bad thing," said Amilite with her silky voice that was made to draw in attention. "The city's wall has an obsidian core to slow attackers down. It probably extends way below the surface to defend against people who might try to come from underneath. If this is obsidian, then we've found the exit! We'll be free very soon!"

"Yeah, soon. It's going to take forever to punch out one block of obsidian, and we need a two high hole for us to fit through, unless one of you guys has enderpearls," said Unfrenden, the fourth and least optimistic member of their little group.

"Would you rather stay in this dark sewer?" asked Morned, trying to show that he shared Amilite's excitement. "How many creepers has Amilite had to kill to save you since we've been down here? Five? Six? If we get out into the light there won't be as many monsters! Also, maybe we can get you a sword so you can defend yourself!" Morned had been the only player with a sword when they entered the sewer. With no wood there was no way to make another, and Morned gave his to Amilite. He was no brilliant fighter, and as she had proven herself to be the leader of their group, he felt it was right that she should have it. What they really needed was a pickaxe, the stone bricks had taken an incredibly long time to break through, but now they were at something that could take them nearly half a day.

"I'm so sick of this place. It's dark. It's scary. All we have to eat is rotten flesh," complained Unfrenden. "Alright, let me get to it then," he said and began punching his way into the black wall.

In almost ten real world minutes Unfrenden would be through the obsidian. After that there would likely be more stone brick and then possibly some dirt or other stone that they would need to dig up through, but that would not take nearly as long. And then they would be at the surface and Morned could return to Melon Town. Amilite said that she would go with him there until she got word from another city that would take her game, but that could take years.

Despite being in such a terrible place, Morned had not hated it that much. Monsters were constantly appearing out of the shadows, Unfrenden dourness was irritating, and Turfden's intelligence was annoying, but Amilite made it all bearable. She was his glowstone in the End. Even during the attack she had been his light.

It had happened whilst they were playing in her spleef arena. Several players dressed in all light grey armor stormed inside and started placing and lighting TNT blocks all over. Morned screamed and Amilite had calmed him with her voice, then lead him to a secret tunnel under her tent.

The tunnel was connected to all of the other faire attractions, and at the center they found that Unfrenden and Turfden had been the only two faire masters to make it down. TNT explosions continued above them as they hid in silence, waiting for the attack to stop. It went on and on, players screamed and blocks exploded, the attackers shouted commands and the sound of swords slashing cut down to their tunnel.

But then a new sound arrived, the calls of the Lazuline guard coming to the attack. They could hear a battle above their heads, slashing and shouting and pleading for lives. Morned had not been sure who was winning. Sometimes he thought it was Lazuline, the voices that sounded desperate to protect the city, but sometimes the powerful voices of conquerors seemed sure of themselves as well.

When the battle quieted above Morned had sneaked to the surface to see the result. Amilite had wanted to play a game of rock-paper-scissors to choose who would go up, improvised with three different items she was carrying to represent the different choices, but the two other faire masters had outright refused at the chance the grey soldiers had been the victors. Morned, not wanting to appear as a coward in front of Amilite, volunteered to check, despite being incredibly afraid.

When he climbed the ladder to the spleef arena, he had crouched behind a red wool block with stone pressure plates atop that served as Amilite's counter. He had expected to see either the Lazuline guard or the other soldiers loitering around, enjoying their victory, but there were no living players in sight. Instead all he could see had been heads, dozens of heads scattered on the ground with no bodies beneath them. There had been no armor, no color, nothing to differentiate them from one side or the other.

He then returned and told Amilite of his findings, and she had decided that it was too risky to investigate further, but they could also not stay in the tunnel in the case that the attackers knew of it as well, or would eventually discover it. Instead she told them of the sewers and how she had accidentally found them years prior whilst setting up her spleef game. So then they began punching their way downwards through the stone tunnel until they found the stone brick sewer fifteen blocks below them.

The sewers were horribly dark, so dark that it was difficult for Morned to make anything out in it. Redstone torches were placed in various points and gave a little light, and only near them could he see that the sewers were actually decorated and built not only with regular stone bricks, but also mossy, cracked, and chiseled as well. He thought it was strange that whoever had built it had gone through the effort of adding aesthetics to something that so few would ever see. He also thought it strange that someone had built a sewer at all in a game that did not require players to use the toilet.

The first few days, or what Morned had expected to be days, had not been terrible, but they had not been great either. Amilite fought off any monster that spawned and had no issue recovering lost hearts. But after their food started to dwindle and they were forced to survive on zombie drops, and their energy dropped from lack of sleep, Amilite had decided that they needed to escape the city. Morned's sword was getting worn away by the constant assault by zombies and skeletons and spiders, and would soon break, so then even fighting the simplest of monsters would be difficult.

Now they were at the easternmost wall of the sewer, halfway through the wall of the city. Once through they would dig until they were well away from the city, at least one hundred blocks, before they surfaced. Amilite said that enough time had passed that if the attackers had been the victors they would have changed the city's banners and they would be able to tell who had won then.

The first block of obsidian gave way to Unfrenden's fist and minutes later the second one broke. The stone bricks, plain stone, and dirt that came after were nothing to Unfrenden then, and he made his narrow tunnel far from the dark sewer. The new tunnel was even darker, with no redstone torches or any source of light, but it was nice walking on dirt and knowing that soon they would dig upwards and out.

When they were roughly one hundred blocks away from the wall, Amilite told him to stop. "Finally, I thought my eyes were gonna fall asleep from staring at this black screen for hours. Hurry up and start digging up, Unfrenden! I wanna see some sunlight, or at the very least the moon!" said Turfden and Morned agreed. All he had seen for days was black and grey and the soft red of the torches. He wanted his rainbow of sheep, the green grass that surrounded Melon Town, and Carsi's big blue pixel eyes.

He wanted to see Parner too. In the chaos of the attack and their attempt at survival in the sewer, he had forgotten all about his companion. The captain was not his friend, but he still hoped that he had not been hurt or killed in the attack. Morned had been the reason Parner had been in Lazuline in the first place, so he felt responsible for the fool, even if it had been Parner's job to protect him.

Unfrenden began digging an upward rising staircase through the stone and andesite and granite, but when they reached dirt Amilite told him to stop, and above Morned could hear the crunch of grass under feet. There were several feet from what he could tell, a steady pat-crunch-pat of some procession. It could have been a group of friends on their way to the city, but the steady footsteps sounded too much like marching, and recent events made Morned's mind jump to soldiers.

"What is it? Pigs? Sheep? They ain't bahing or grunting, so maybe a buncha creepers?" said Turfden and Amilite and Morned shushed him in unison, but it was too late to keep him quiet.

"Halt!" shouted a gruff voice from above and the marching feet halted. "Eregey, did you hear that? Something beneath us. In the ground." Morned's heart began to beat rapidly. He tried to back up, but Amilite was behind him, and he did not want her to think he was running.

But when Unfrenden began backing up, he pushed Turfden back as well and Morned, being trapped between Turfden and Amilite, was shoved back down the tunnel. Behind him, Amilite whispered as quietly as she could to block up the tunnel, and Morned passed it onto Turfden who then passed it on to Unfrenden, who began to place dirt blocks as he reversed.

But again it was not quick enough. Along with the sound of dirt blocks being placed, he could hear them being shoveled away more quickly. "Yeah, there's someone down here! I can hear 'em!" said a second voice, slightly less gruff than the first. This second voice was eerily close, just as close as the sound of the breaking dirt. And then a block broke just as Unfrenden placed it, revealing a player wearing a blue hat and tunic. "There y'ar! Why don't you folks come outta this hole and join us in the light," the digger said and switched from holding a shovel to a drawn bow.

They made their way out of the hole and the sudden light made Morned's eyes squint. When his eyes adjusted he looked around and saw that they were surrounded by soldiers dressed in blue armor with cyan leggings. "Oh thank the admins! You're from Eastip!" he said with a sigh of relief. Eastip was the closest county to Melon Town, if the Forest was not counted, and Carsi was friendly with their count.

"Yer, we are," said the soldier who had dug them out. "And who're you? It's a bit suspicious for folk to be tunnelin' this close to the city, what with the reports of bandits and the Deadforce and all," he said and the other fifteen or so of his group laughed. _Why are they laughing?_ Was the Deadforce the group that had attacked the city? Morned had heard the town priest mention the Deadforce a few times, they had apparently been the army that served the Enderlord.

"Three of us are faire masters from the city's faire quarter, we host games and that sort of thing, or at least we did. The city was indeed attacked, whether it was bandits or the Deadforce or imitators, I can not say," said Amilite. "And Morned here is from Melon Town. We are escaping the city, you see, that is why you found us tunneling. We were going to Melon Town with Morned seeking shelter. _" Why did she say that? There is something terribly wrong with these soldiers._

"A Melon boy, eh?" the gruff voice Morned had heard before when they were in the tunnel spoke to him, and he turned to see a player dressed in full iron armor, glimmering with purple enchantments. He was surprised he had not spotted the player before, but perhaps it was because he had wanted to be hidden. "Melon. Such a nice place. What do you do there, boy?" he asked, in a way that sent shivers down Morned's spine.

He was not sure whether he should answer truthfully, or tell him that he was an ordinary citizen. Not that he wasn't an ordinary citizen, but his work in the town was well known, even in the neighboring towns of the county. "A farmer, just a lowly farmer," he said, not really telling a lie.

The iron soldier chuckled. "Farmers. They are the blood of this world, surely. Without them, players would have to find food for themselves, and it's so rare to come by a wild animal these days. You're probably keeping quite a few people alive, aren't you, Melon boy?"

"I s-suppose so," he said, and blushed from his stutter. Now was not the time for him to show any fear. Not in front of all these soldiers, and of course Amilite. "Are you on your way to liberate the city?"

"Liberate it?" the iron soldier laughed. "You fools must've been hiding under a rock. Lazuline never fell. The blue guards defended her, and now everything's been sorted out. We're… just on our way there for… diplomatic purposes." Again, the player's words sent shivers down Morned's spine. He could feel an intense pressure from this soldier, a malicious aura almost.

Morned turned to Lazuline's walls and could see that the blue banners were indeed still hanging. They had been hiding under the city for days, when they could have simply surfaced and continued with their lives. "So it is," he said and looked to Amilite, then down at the grass.

"I think we'll be on our way then," said Amilite. "We're sorry if we looked suspicious, but we really didn't know the city was safe. We were hiding underground, in the sewers. The last thing we knew, the faire quarter was covered in heads, so we had no idea who held the city."

The iron soldier stared at her silently, then at Morned, then back to Amilite. "I guess that makes sense. How could you know if you were hiding like rats in the sewer?" he laughed.

"So what are we going to do with them, Sir?" asked the slightly-less-gruff-voiced soldier.

"They can go," said the iron soldier. "We've got more important business to attend to anyway. King Daggeff should be expecting us, and we wouldn't want to keep His Highness waiting, now would we?"

The soldiers let Morned and his group go, and continued their march towards Lazuline City. Morned's heart was still pumping furiously, but as the soldiers neared the city walls he started to calm. Whoever that iron soldier was, he frightened Morned terribly.

"That guy was awesome!" said Turfden. "I wonder how he got all that iron armor?"

"I didn't like 'im. Scary. Way too scary for my taste," said Unfrenden.

"Of course he's scary," said Amilite. "Did none of you recognize him? Do none of you know of him?" she asked, and the three others shook their heads. Morned agreed with Unfrenden that the soldier was frightening, but he had no idea who he was. He had assumed that with armor like that he must be an important soldier of Eastip, most likely its captain. "That was Sir Jelfling of Whiteflood. Certainly you know that name."

"Uh, no. I don't know many knights. Never saw the point in remembering the names of people like that, doesn't affect us here in Sedweest," said Turfden. Sedweest did not have knights, that was more of a Sudthrend thing.

"I've never heard of him either. So he's not from Eastip then?" said Morned.

"Sir Jelfling is possibly the most famous knight of all Sudthrend, a vassal of King Vagbonrai. They say he has a heart made of ice, and has the mind of a killer," she said, and Morned started to get an idea of who the knight was. He _had_ heard of him after all. "They call him the _Icy Death_."


	9. Beyos

The storm raged above his head. Lightning. Thunder. Waves pushed his birch boat left and right and up and down. Of all the additions the server had made to the game, waves were his least favorite. They made travel by sea impossible in bad weather. He already hated boats to begin with, and the waves made them even harder to control.

It had been four days since he rowed off from the docks of Savand, and he had needed to correct his course seven times already. The storm had been raging for three of the four days. Once he had even been blown so off course that he could see the mega taiga of Sudthrend, far south of where he needed to be.

Part of him wished he had not rowed off on his own, so that he could have company to make the trip seem faster, someone to help him keep his course to the castle, but the sensible part of him knew that he needed to come alone. The letter he had received seemed real enough, signed with his name and claimed that he was returned from the grave, but he did not want to believe it. He wanted to believe that it was written long before he had died, written as a joke to be sent out after his head was laid to rest. But Holkross was not like that. He did not joke. Holkross was alive again.

When the castle finally appeared in the distance the storm seemed to instantly disperse. It no longer needed to slow him down, it could no longer hinder him. The waves below him flattened out and the ocean became calm and blue. Below him he could see squids swimming in random directions, some of them breaking the surface only to dive far below again.

He also noticed something strange at the ocean's floor, though it was too dark to make out what it was. It looked like a line of cobblestone going through the sand and dirt, though as he continued rowing he could see that it was a ring that seemed to encircle the castle. As he neared the castle he could see another ring below the water as well, and a third even closer. They were not there the last time he visited Seastone, he was sure of that.

Castle Seastone was a very unimaginative name for the castle, as it was simply a stone castle floating above the sea. It was nicely built, one of the Builder King's constructs, but not as elaborate as the palace of Parem Barah. The Castle's base was cobblestone surrounded by cobblestone walls, the kind made from six blocks in a crafting table, to give it a bit of depth. As the castle grew taller, the cobblestone changed into plain stone crossed with polished diorite. The four towers on each of the castle's corners were topped with stone brick stairs. It was a very grey castle.

When he was nearing the castle's dock he could make out two players standing at the gate. Both were dressed in white dyed armor and holding plain, white wooden shields. Rindigul, the lord of the castle, had declared himself independent of Sedweest only twelve years after the war. Sedweest's king did not appreciate one of his seaguards seceding and had the lord removed, but never replaced him. For years the castle had laid empty, but now apparently it had gained a new lord. The white banners flapping against the walls symbolized neutrality, showing that if Daggeff wanted to claim Seastone again the lord here would bow to him. It was a front.

The two players noticed Beyos when he reached the dock, and met him as he was trying to get his boat to stay between two planks of wood. However, he was having trouble, and it kept wanting to float back out to sea when he got out of it. He hated boats. "Uh, hey! Hey you!" said one of the guards.

"Yes? Hey you to yourself," said Beyos.

"What do you think you're doing here? No one docks here without the lord's permission!" he said. The player speaking to him had large green eyes, the sort of eyes usually given to female skins, despite him having the voice of a young male.

"And how do I get the lord's permission?" he asked, nonchalantly. The player was obviously not very intelligent, and it had been weeks since he had last toyed with someone. "Do I need to walk up and ask him? Or will he come down here and tell me that I'm allowed to enter his castle?"

"Um, he just gives it to you. He tells us if you're allowed in. And he said that no one's allowed in. So you don't have permission," he said, and the other guard went behind his back. "So you just go on back home. You don't have a place here. Go. Shoo."

"I don't think you should do that, Kermy," said the other player from behind the one called Kermy's back.

"Don't be such a fraidy cat, Heffincul. Look, this guy doesn't even have armor. Look buddy, just leave. Our lord don't want you here. Trust me. Get in your boat and we'll all have a happy ending."

"You'll have an ending quite soon," said Beyos. "He called you a fraidy cat, did he Heffincul?" he said to the player behind Kermy. "Now did he mean that as an insult? Why would calling someone a cat be insulting to them? I'm not sure I understand."

"H-he didn't know what he was saying," said Heffincul who began to back up towards the castle.

"I call him a fraidy cat 'cause that's what he is. Fraidy cat! Fraidy cat! Fraidy cat!" A smirk formed on Beyos' mouth behind his computer screen as Kermy continued to chant. "C'mon, fraidy cat! Get back here and help me get this guy off the docks. He's got no armor, if he doesn't go we'll just kill 'im!" Beyos did not wear his armor on the open sea. If he was spotted in his Melon colors pirates would take him, thinking he was a trader heading to a port. If he wore his master's colors, the seaguards would try to kill him or take him prisoner. As an unarmored player, most took him for a newspawn looking for a home and would leave him alone.

"Kermy, I really think we should just let him in," said Heffincul, who was now all the way back at the gate. He pressed a button, a button which Beyos knew was connected to a redstone torch that signaled the gate keeper. Up above the gate the gatekeeper appeared and looked down to Heffincul. "Open the gate! Open it!"

"No! We don't have to be scared of this loser! Heffin, get your sword ready and let's get him off the dock!" the big eyed player said and slashed with his sword, but Beyos jumped back with feline grace just in time to avoid the unenchanted stone.

"It's not nice to swing your sword at someone," said Beyos before he jumped forward again, pulling out his own sword and slashing at Kermy's white tunic, sending him flying back into the castle's wall.

"Kermy!" shouted Heffincul.

"I'm down… I'm down to half a heart!" the wounded player screamed. "Please! Don't kill me! I was just doin' my job!" Kermy cried, and Beyos' smirk grew. Cat's Claw was his favorite weapon. With it he did not need to kill anyone. If his opponent was wearing unenchanted leather, which most soldiers did, it would take them down to half a heart with one swipe, leaving them scared and pleading for their lives.

"Now, you called your friend there a _fraidy cat_. Yet now you're the one crying. I bet you've even got tears running down your face now," said Beyos. "So what do you have to say to Heffincul? Is he a _fraidy cat_?"

"N-no! I'm the fraidy cat!" said Kermy before Beyos slashed him once more with Cat's Claw, turning him into a burst of armor and random items.

"No, you were a coward. _I'm_ the cat," he said and turned to Heffincul. "May I enter the castle now that this has been taken care of? Holkross sent for me, you know."

"Y-yes, Lord Beyos," he said and the gate keeper opened the rough andesite gate, a vertical wall that parted in the middle, creating a single block wide path. "I'm sorry about Kermy, he… he didn't know who you were, m'lord."

"I'm sorry that he had to die," lied Beyos. "But stupid people don't belong in this world. You have to be quick of mind. A sharp mind gives you intuition and the reflexes of a cat. Obviously he had neither of those, or he would still be alive," he said and entered the castle.

The first floor of the castle was a wide hall with a large staircase in the center, leading to the second floor. It was decorated with tables and stairs for chairs, item frames filled with eyes of ender, and light grey banners, revealing the true fealty the lord here was sworn to. It was mainly used as a lounge for the residents to relax in and look out at the ocean through wide oak fence windows.

The second floor of the castle was less decorated than the first, but had many rooms closed by oak doors. It was the servants' floor, though the floor had more rooms than servants these days. Beyos guessed that the two guards at the gate were all that the lord had so far, but now there was only one.

The third floor was the lord's floor, and it was decorated much like the first, but more extravagant with a throne made of quartz and diorite, and item frames filled with shining swords that once belonged to the heroes who had defended the castle in the days before the war. And on the quartz throne sat the lord, a player in glowing diamond armor, looking more dour than he ever had before.

"Beyos the Cat," the lord said and Beyos approached him. Before his death Holkross had had a pale skin, what most people would call beige, but now it was a light grey, a sickly grey that reminded Beyos of death. "You have come at last. I was beginning to think you were a traitor as well, my friend."

"So it is true. You're alive," said Beyos. It was still hard to believe, despite the player standing right there in front of him. He had seen his head. He had _paid_ to see it. But now it was here, attached to his body, and speaking to him.

"What? You didn't believe me when I sent you that book? Come now Beyos, how else could someone send for you, with a book signed with my name? I am alive, Beyos. I am here. I am lord of this castle, but not for long."

"You called me here, telling me that you had some plan. A plan to bring us back to the power we had in the war. Tell me what it is, please," said Beyos, quickly glancing back over the message Holkross had sent him.

"You were always the patient sort, a real hunter. And now you're rushing me? In time, Beyos. But first, don't you want to see the top of your castle?" asked Holkross.

 _He's giving me this castle?_

It was Holkross' castle through right of conquest, if that was how he had gained it. But what use did he have with it, and why give it to Beyos? Beyos was never a seafaring warrior, and he did not know how to defend a castle on the shore, not to mention one completely surrounded by water. "Follow me, Beyos," he said and they climbed another flight of stairs to the very top of the castle.

The fourth floor was the roof. Open to the air, the night moon was the only light aside from a few prismarine lanterns. The roof was mostly flat and made of nothing but stone brick, but for an odd structure in the very center. A structure made from something that should not be there. "Bedrock?" said Beyos as he went to examine the structure. Its base was a bedrock rectangle eight blocks long and five blocks wide. Perpendicular to each of the rectangle's corners stood a five block high bedrock tower, and the four blocks at the center of the structure rose up into a tower eight blocks high with a torch at the top of three, the fourth block having nothing atop it that he could see. "What is this, Holkross? It looks like the resurrection altar from Caulrin's ritual, but made of bedrock!"

"It was a resurrection altar," said Holkross. "The gold was turned to bedrock after it brought me back to life. That is how I am here. Do you know what happens when you die on this server, Beyos?" Beyos shook his head. He had once assumed a dead player was banned, just as they would be from a normal hardcore server. He knew better after learning about Caulrin's discovery, but still did not know all the details.

"When you die you are able to respawn, but instead of being returned to the world in a new body, just as a newspawn is, you are put into spectator mode, only able to view the world without interacting with it in any way. You are a spirit essentially, a ghost. And as a ghost I was forced to watch my head be put on display in some museum. I was forced to watch people learn about my history and my failures. When you die you are bound to your head. You are trapped."

Beyos had seen Holkross' head at the museum in Parem Barah. The tour guide had said very little to flatter the fallen general. "But how is it that you were resurrected? Not only would someone need to steal back your head, but they would also need gold. A lot of gold," he said, looking to the bedrock. From just looking at it he estimated that there were nearly one hundred blocks of unbreakable bedrock there. Once it had been nearly one hundred blocks of gold.

"Because we still have devoted friends, Beyos. One of my lieutenants lead a mission to procure some gold in Sedweest, whilst one of yours retrieved my head from Oheest. The Enderlord's power did not vanish when he did, Beyos. His influence is still very real here." Beyos knew that. His master's name still made him want to bend his knees, even when he was playing the part of a soldier in Melon. _Stupid Melon_.

"You mentioned something about this castle being mine. What is the point of that?"

"Ah, Beyos, haven't you figured it out yet? We may still have friends left in the world, but they are not nearly enough to regain our power. We need to build a new army and we need to wipe out the remnants of our enemies. Enemies like Daggeff.

"I will be leaving in a few short days for Sedweest. I have convinced the count of Eastip that I am his servant, and started putting thoughts into his head about expanding his county. He listened, the fool, and has built an army great enough to wipe out Melon." _Stupid Melon_. "Once Melon is nothing more than an extension of Eastip, I will rid the county of Count Binchent and claim it as my own. Of course, it will look like an accident. I wouldn't want his people to turn on me."

 _Why Melon?_ There were other counties that he could take over, like Ston or Dvigland. But Melon was closest to Lazuline, he realized. "King Daggeff. When he learns that war has broken out-"

"He will help Eastip," said Holkross. "I've done everything in my power to make sure it looks like Melon is the aggressor to him. He will not stand for the things he thinks Melon has done, and will put an end to it. Once Melon is mine, and I have two counties worth of an army, it will be too late, and we will charge on Lazuline."

Beyos was unsure of that plan. Others bordered Blue county and would come to King Daggeff's aid once they learned he was in trouble. But if Holkross took him by surprise… "So you'll be leaving this castle to me whilst you're gone then?"

"Yes, but don't think too much into that, Beyos. Your real gift will not be this castle. No. Once I am King Holkross of Sedweest, we will take another kingdom, and put you on the throne. Oheest seems as good a place as any." Beyos had suspected that. Back when the Enderlord was waging his war, he had promised Sedweest to Holkross and Oheest to Beyos. Sudthrend had been promised to his third general.

"And Sudthrend?" asked Beyos.

"Will go to whoever the Enderlord chooses."

Beyos' tongue tied itself. He tried to speak, but each word came out a garbled mess of spit and soundless syllables. But he did not have to speak. He knew what Holkross meant by that, and Holkross knew that he knew. _We're going to resurrect the Enderlord._


	10. Carsi (III)

She was pacing atop the southern wall when the rider popped into her view. Even though she could not make out anything but the colors of the soldiers armor, she knew that it was Enterlan. _Where are the others?_ He was returning alone, but she had sent him out with ten other soldiers. "Soldier returning from the south!" one of the wall guards called and the guard next to Carsi pulled a lever, opening the gate below them.

"It looks like Enterlan, M'lady," said the lever puller.

"Indeed," said the countess and she climbed down the ladder to meet the soldier at the gate. Four other soldiers greeted her there, all garbed in leather armor and wielding stone swords. She had soldiers, there was no lack of them, but five soldiers possessing iron could hold off an army of fifty if they knew what they were doing. Maffis had told her that, along with other things that he had learned in the war. But there was not enough iron to hold off Eastip.

"Where's Isremik? Where's Optilian?" she heard one of the soldiers say as they watched Enterlan race across the plain on his grey horse. She wished she could tell them that Isremik and Optilian, and all the others she had sent with Enterlan had more than likely stayed in Kiwano, but she could not lie to them.

The sky darkened as Enterlan returned, and by the time he reached the gate the stars were in the sky. "My countess!" he exclaimed when he returned. "I have… news. We should talk in private." he said, and Carsi closed her eyes.

"Yes, of course," she said and left him to tie up his horse and returned to her house. She was not looking forward to hearing what the soldier had to say, but she needed to know. That was why she had sent him off. They had died for information, and she needed to open her ears to it.

Geena had logged off for a short break, and when Carsi returned home her assistant's character was standing still and silent in the corner. She wished that Geena was online to hear what Enterlan was going to deliver, but the girl needed a break as much as anyone did, especially with all the planning for farm expansions Carsi had been having her do.

She waited in the main room of her house for several minutes. Everything was silent and unmoving. It was a calm before the storm. The calm ended with Enterlan rushing through the oak doors, nearly running into one of the half-slabs that acted as tables. He stood there, looking at her for a moment, stuttering and umming. It was unlike the blowhard to be without words to say. "Enterlan, I sent you to Kiwano to see if the players there were protected, to make sure that the soldiers there were ready to defend against the possible threat of Eastip. I sent you with ten players, ten soldiers, ten citizens of this town, and you've returned alone, again. _What_ happened?"

"We, all of us, arrived at Kiwano, what was supposed to be Kiwano, but there was nothing there but stone skeletons. The skeletons of houses. It was destroyed. Gone. We looked, but there were no people. Only heads. It's not like I've never seen a town destroyed like that, I saw Seedspits if you remember, but I wasn't expecting to _find_ one like that. I was expecting maybe to have to battle when I got there, or maybe to do nothing but warn the lord about Eastip or bandits or whatever. But it was gone. I don't know what else to say about the town other than it was gone."

 _Gone?_ Carsi had friends that had lived there, several of them had lived in Melon Town when Maffis had been count. She had sent them there to help the town, which was new at that time, and they became important people there. Lord Yemartiful had been raised by her, and was her ear of south.

"But then when we were searchin' the town, ya know, making sure there weren't still people hidin' under what was left of the buildings and stuff, they came back. Eastip soldiers, they were, with their big cyan 'X's and their horses and iron knight. Five of my men turned to run, but were quickly stopped by arrow fire. We were stuck there."

That was two towns destroyed by players in Eastip colors. Either someone was trying to soil Binchent's name, or he was truly starting a war. "You said something about an iron knight?" asked Carsi.

"Yeah. We were captured, locked up in the town's jail. Every day they'd let one of us leave, and then they'd never return to the jail. On the tenth day I was the only one left, just me, locked up in a cobblestone room in a jail surrounded by the enemy. When they came for me, they took me to a player with full iron enchanted armor. I'd never seen someone like that you know, at least not outside of Lazuline City. He introduced himself as a knight, Sir Jelfling he said his name was."

 _The Icy Death_. "What did the knight want?"

"He wanted me to enlist in Eastip's army, to betray you and recruit other Melon soldiers to join me. Of course I refused, but then he gave me these and…" Enterlan threw several heads at Carsi. When she moused over the name of one it read Optilian. She didn't have to read the names of the other heads to know who they were. "And I told him that I would join them, and that I'd make sure to turn as many soldiers as I could to Eastip's side. But I lied, I did, I'd never betray you or Melon or anyone here!"

"I believe you, Enterlan," she said, and did. "But I don't think they believe you are on their side, not really. I think they knew you'd come to me, and tell me everything. I think they are counting on it."

"But why? I don't see how that would help them or anything." _Of course you wouldn't_. There were many reasons to send back a messenger. If this was some trick to start a war, Enterlan's tale could be the spark that lights the fuse. If Binchent was truly behind the attacks, Enterlan's tale could cause a panic and make her people flee, some may even join Eastip if they feel there is a better chance in their victory.

"It doesn't matter. Thank you, Enterlan. I know this has been difficult, and I should never have asked you to do this, especially after the stress you went through with Seedspits. Head on back to the barracks and have a rest, your supper's on me. Just don't go telling all the other soldiers about this. It's a secret, just between us," she said and tossed him two gold nuggets. Enterlan left and Carsi noticed Geena's head twitch. "Welcome back."

"Oh, thank you, Countess," she said nervously. "Was that Enterlan that just left? I assume everything went well on his mission?"

"Geena. You heard everything didn't you?"

She looked to the ground and sighed."No, not everything, I don't think. I sat back down just when he started talking about Sir Jelfling. I'm sorry, Carsi. I just didn't want to interrupt, and after I heard about the Icy Death, I wasn't sure if I should know about it at all."

"It's fine, though if you hadn't have heard, I wouldn't have told you anyway. Not that I like keeping secrets from you, or any of my people, but this is different from an attack on some random town. This is the second town these players have destroyed, and now they supposedly have the Icy Death with them. If the Melon people hear about this, they'll think their own towns will be attacked eventually, that Melon Town will be attacked eventually. It will be chaos and panic."

"I understand, Carsi," said Geena. "Do you think Enterlan will keep quiet about all of it though? It _is_ Enterlan."

"For awhile. He's been through alot in the past few weeks, and I doubt he'll want to talk about it. But eventually he'll start needing attention and make outrageous claims about Kiwano and Seedspits." She would need to explain to the town what happened to the other nine soldiers she sent out to Kiwano before Enterlan did. She would not lie, but she would need to find a way to tell everyone without giving too much of the situation away.

Carsi left her house and Geena and made her way to the church. In the time that Tellform had been gone she had received many applications for a replacement priest, despite her not having direct control over the church. If she had a choice she would give the job to Morned, if he ever returned. Morned was not the most admin devoted player, but he prayed regularly and did what he could to please them, as far as Carsi knew.

He and Parner were still missing, and she was starting to give up hope. There had been no news from Lazuline City or any of the north or western towns about them, and with the attacks she suspected that they had been caught in the middle of one. Parner was decent at fighting, even though she did not like to admit that, but Morned was a farmer and not a fighter. If something happened to Parner, Morned would be defenceless. _Beyos would not be defenceless_ , she thought to herself.

Kivlore had been the captain of Melon Town for thirty years, he had been hand picked by Maffis for the job. The people of Melon loved him, even from the neighboring towns in the county. But then he was killed by a zombie whilst trying to defend his people. It was a terrible thing, but the county needed to move past it, and she needed to promote a new captain.

Beyos had been the obvious choice to her and everyone in town. But Beyos had been special to her, more special than even Kivlore had been, and she had worried that the job would be too dangerous for him, just as it had been for Kivlore. She decided to promote Parner instead, a player who was good with a sword, but also one she did not mind losing.

"Yo, yo, Carsi!" Hamien called to her when she entered the church. He had been Tellform's assistant for years and was acting as his replacement until an official one was chosen. It was more likely that he would be the new priest than Morned, but she could still hope. Hamien was not her favorite person. "What brings my favorite countess to this humble little church?"

"I'm here to pray, Hamien," she said and stood in the half finished circle. Most of the church was decorated with red flowers and carpets and looked completed. The broken ring ruined the look and feel, and it could not be ignored. She took out her book and quill and began writing.

"Of course, of course," Hamien said and stood next to her. "So, what are you praying for? A new priest? A new captain? Romance?" he said, creeping even closer.

"A prayer is private between the player and the admins, Hamien, I'd expect you to know that. Now please, take a few steps back," she said, and continued writing. _Please deliver Morned to me safely. We need him here more than ever. And if it's not too much to ask, please help Beyos find his way home. We need him too. I need him._

She had seen many fighters in her Minecraft career, players that spent all of their time in game practicing and fighting other players. Most of them had been great, near professional levels. But then there was Beyos. He was the best. Not only at direct combat, but also at surprising his enemies with secret tactics that only he could come up with. If war was coming to Melon, Beyos was who she needed.

"Of course, of course, my countess. I know, I know. I also know how stressed you are with our missing captain, and our lack of a priest. I've been stressed about it too, I have, I have." _Don't ask. Do not ask._ "I can not help much with Parner, but I can help with the latter. I was with Tellform for seventeen years. I know all there is to know about running this church, I do, I do. If I am chosen, I will not leave, not ever, not ever."

"Hamien, I am not going to give you the job. I _can't_ give it to you, as I've told you already. There will be an election next year. If you want the job, get out there and start campaigning. This is the last we'll speak of it."

"Well, just think about it, please. Thinking is what you do best, after all, my countess," Hamien said and left her for the back of the church.

Carsi dropped her book into the hopper and went to leave but stopped when she did not hear the sizzle of it burning in the lava. She checked her game volume and found it fine, but passed it off as a glitch and left the church, now heading towards Stone Street. Hamien had left a bad taste in her mouth, and she needed to speak to someone she could depend on, at least some of the time.

At the entrance to the town's mine she pressed the button on the obsidian pillar. Moment's later the miner appeared with an iron ingot in his hand. "I knew it was you, Carsi. But then again, who else comes to visit me?" said Darnilk as tossed her six ingots. "I've got some redstone too, but I'd really rather not give it to you, since we both know what you'd use it for."

"I'm not hear about the church today, Darnilk."

"Screw the church! Seriously! It's all everyone talks about lately. 'Who's gonna be the new priest' or 'Darnilk's a stinge with his redstone' or some other stupid and unnecessary talk. I'm getting real tired of it if I'm honest," said the miner.

"Well, you are being a stinge," she giggled. "But I'm not here for redstone today. Really, this iron was what I wanted. And it's a great help Darnilk…" Carsi said and took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and then walked toward Darnilk's mine. "Can you follow me, please?"

"Follow you into my own home? Sure, why not?" grumbled the miner and the two made their way into the damp, dark abode of Darnilk. When they were at the bottom, in the little room that served as his living area, she stopped. "Alright, what is this? I don't have more iron and I told you that I'm not giving up this redstone. I've made up my mind to sell it to the wizards. I'll figure out how to get it there on my own."

"No, it's nothing like that, Darnilk. I just…" she looked at the iron ingots on her hotbar and imagined them being forged into swords. "Have you heard about what's going on up there? You frequent the inn, don't you?"

"You mean the whole bandit thing? The king will deal with 'em, I'm sure. I trust him more than I do your admins, no matter how much you say they comfort people. Daggeff has an army, that's something that I can go to Lazuline and see for myself."

"They aren't bandits, Darnilk. They're soldiers," she said. "And they might be Eastip soldiers."

"Eastip? You mean like Tiport? Why? Why would you think that?"

"I'm only telling you this so you understand the rest of what I'm going to tell you, Darnilk. There have been two towns in Melon that have been destroyed by players in Eastip armor. At first I assumed they were merely bandits or a band of griefers trying to pass themselves off as legitimate soldiers in order to pass into towns safely. But then I learned that a particular knight was in their service, a knight that would never join with bandits or basic griefers."

"You don't mean the Icy Death do you?" he asked and Carsi nodded. She knew that Darnilk knew about the Icy Death, he had originally lived in the ice plains of Sudthren before moving to Sedweest and eventually finding Melon Town. Jelfling was famous there. "That's… That's not possible, Carsi. The Icy Death is…"

"In Sedweest. In Melon. He has joined with an enemy of ours and is killing our people."

"I don't understand. The Icy Death is a killer, there is no way I can argue against that. But he's also a knight, they only kill when they need to defend their realm. Eastip is not his realm, and he doesn't need to kill any of our people. We aren't the aggressors here, right?"

"No," said Carsi. "Our soldiers have done nothing but defend themselves, or so I have been told. Most of my information has been coming from an… unreliable source, but I believe him. The Icy Death has joined Eastip, I feel this in my heart."

Darnilk was silent for a moment, but then threw a few pieces of redstone at her feet. "Take that. I don't know if it'll really help or anything, but it's something. I assume that's why you're telling me all this, to guilt me into helping you with that church."

"No, Darnilk, I've told you I'm not here for redstone," she said.

"Then why else would you tell me? I doubt I'm in very high standing with your information pyramid, if you know what I mean. There's got to be a reason for you to be telling the town miner something yourself. Iron, that's what you want. I can mine all day and night, but I won't come up with anymore than I've already given you."

"Darnilk, I'm not here for iron or redstone or anything you can dig out of the ground. I'm here for you," she said. "War is coming to Melon, to Melon Town. I expect an army to show up at our gate in the next few days, if not sooner. With our lack of iron, we can not hope to defend the town. It will fall, Darnilk."

"Yeah, I know it will," he said, looking to the ground. "Look, I'm sorry that I haven't been finding much iron. If the town falls, it's my fault. But… But you shouldn't have to die for my failure. You should leave Carsi, run to Lazuline City. If you go, the king will surely send help to protect the rest of the county, even if Melon Town is gone. Eastip attacking without us provoking them has to be a crime, right?"

"It is a crime, and the king should be told. But I can not leave Melon Town to its fate. I am countess, and I must see it to the end," she said and pulled out an enchanted iron sword. "I may not be a king, and we may not have knights here in Sedweest, but I dub you Sir Darnilk in the lands of Melon."

" _Sir_ Darnilk? Carsi, have you gone crazy? Why would you do this?"

"Because I have a quest for my new knight," she said and told him of the quest.

When Darnilk was gone, she left the mine and climbed out from the cobblestone archway that served as the mine's entrance. There she was greeted by three soldiers, one that she recognized as Isingdil, a sergeant. "There you are, Countess!" Isingdil said. "Every soldier in town has been searching for you!"

"Searching? What for?" Her heart jumped to the worst. Was an Eastip army at her front door already?

"We've made a capture, a prisoner is being held in the jail! Well, it wasn't a true capture, more like he asked to be jailed. For his protection, he said." That was something she had never heard before, at least not in Melon. The Melon Town jail was a simple stone brick box with no windows and only a few torches on the inside to stop monsters from spawning. If it held a prisoner there would be a few guards stationed inside of it to protect them from players angry at whatever crime they committed, or from assassins sent to keep them quiet, but it was far from what she considered a safe place.

"Alright, who is it?" If the jail received a new tenant she was usually notified at some point, but for all the soldiers in town to be searching for her in order to pass on the information it must be someone important.

"I can't tell you that. Not because I don't want to, but because I don't know. They didn't tell me who he is, only that he declared himself an enemy of Melon and that he should be locked up. So they did. That's all I know, Countess," said the sergeant.

Isingdil lead her to the jail and found that the twin iron doors in the front were unguarded. Apparently they did not think the prisoner was a danger to the town, or that he would try to escape since he had been imprisoned of his own free will. He pressed a stone button, opening one of the doors for her, and she walked inside, finding two soldiers standing on both sides of the prisoner. "I'll leave you here, Countess," said Isingdil, and the two soldiers exited with him.

She recognized the prisoner at once. He had been at many of the parties held in Tiport, and she had invited him to several of her own parties. "Terygan Eastflower," she said and he remained silent. The lord of Eastflower looked at her through black pixel eyes, his mouth a flat line that gave his face a solemn look. "They say you claim to be an enemy of Melon."

"I am," he said at last, his head not moving.

"And what have we done to make us your enemy?"

"You have done nothing, Carsi," said Lord Terygan.

"Then why did you allow yourself to be imprisoned? Why are you calling yourself our enemy?"

"Because I am sworn to serve Count Binchent, Carsi. He gave me the title of lord, so I must obey him. And as he is your enemy, that makes me your enemy as well."

"Binchent," Carsi said, trying not to grit her teeth too tightly. "What do you know of the attacks on my people? Attacks made by players dressed in the blue and cyan of Eastip?"

"They were Binchent's way of testing you, Countess. He wanted to see how Melon would react to them. You did not react at all, other than sending a small team to the border. He knows how weak your county is. He knows about your shortage of iron. He knows that your captain is missing."

"Why? Why is he doing this?"

"No one knows. He began building his army at the turn of the year, and it has grown tremendously. He did not tell anyone why he was building it, only that he wanted it built. And now, Carsi, he wants to put it to the test."

Carsi's teeth clenched down upon themselves and she drew her enchanted sword. "How is he going to test this army?" she screamed. But Lord Terygan did not answer her through voice. Instead he tossed her a glowing book. A book signed by a player named Binchent. "It's a declaration of war."


	11. Maffis (III)

When the storm cleared at last, Maffis found that they were just north of the Breezestone River. He wasn't sure when they had crossed it, he did not remember swimming in any water or crossing any bridge. The storm had been chaos and he quickly learned that the girl was terrified of the lightning, creating even more chaos for him.

At every clap of thunder she would sprint away to try and hide, and it was all he could do to keep her with their group. Several times he had wanted to let her run so he could be done with her, but he had given his word that he would help her, so he would chase after her and corral her back to Durgey and Turgle.

One time the girl had vanished and it took nearly a day to find her again. With Maffis, Turgle, and Durgey all on horseback, Zelnya naturally fell behind and it was difficult to keep a constant watch of her. A clap of thunder had apparently frightened her so much that she had dug herself a dirt tomb to hide in without telling the others. By the time they found her Maffis had been so angry he could not even yell at her. He turned from her without saying a word and left Durgey and Turgle to dig her out.

Durgey had also been gnawing at his nerves through the storm. They boy would purposely try to scare Zelnya by screeching into his microphone and imitating thunder. His singing had been worse though, and the songs he had made up would have caused a creeper to detonate itself, if they had ears to hear.

But the storm was over now and he could see blue banners flapping in the wind, a white 'S' on them told him that they were now in Ston. _This place has certainly changed_ , he thought to himself. The banners were attached to a high oak plank and log walkway above the entrance to a town. The last time he had been here it had been a small inn, but now it had grown into what looked like a small farming town. Outside of the entrance were four cobblestone wall enclosures; one growing beets, one growing sugarcane, one with carrots, and the fourth with brown furred rabbits.

"Look at the bunnies!" shouted Durgey. "I want one of their feet!"

"I don't care about their feet, I just want something filling to eat! Rabbit stew would be great, or maybe some beets or anything that isn't rotten flesh," said Turgle. Zelnya's vanishing act had set them behind in rations. When they had started off from Shorebreeze he had estimated they had enough food to make it to the inn, which was now a town, but adding Zelnya to their group had made them drop much quicker. Then wasting a day searching for her had nearly depleted it, and they were forced to hunt zombies for food.

"Do you think they'll let me send a letter to my friend? Then I can tell her that I'm coming, and she could get the money ready for you, Maffis," said Zelnya. Maffis had already told her several times that he did not care about the gold, but bit his tongue this time. He was annoyed enough.

"They probably offer some sort of postal service here, though I'm not sure what good it'd do you," said Maffis. "Whoever delivers it would have to go by foot or horse, just as we are, so it'd arrive at Tiport roughly the same time we would. No sense paying for a service we could just do ourselves."

For years there had been talk of connecting all of the county capitals together with a rail line, but the War of the End had left the world with such a shortage of iron that it was becoming an afterthought. He suspected that some of the counties were still hoarding iron, Lapis being one of them, but were too stingy to share in the project or wanted to keep it for weapons and armor. So for now all deliveries had to be made personally, instead of being sent quickly in a minecart.

"That's only if they keep the same schedule as us though," said Turgle. "The post players in Breezelyn were very efficient, and would ride for days without resting, sometimes crossing the entire county and back before taking a break. If the post workers here are anything like they are back home, then whatever the girl wants to send will get there long before us. Well, if we take breaks like we have been, I mean. And I hope we do, because my fingers are getting tired of walking."

"Yes, we'll find the inn and spend the night there. And I suppose we can spend a day or two in whatever this town is," he said. His fingers were getting tired too. If the Deadforce imitators were planning an attack on Melon, he still had time to get there and warn them. Melon Town was far from the ocean, so any army would need to travel far across land, giving Carsi plenty of time to learn about them and to set up a defense. "And we'll find someone to deliver a letter for you, Zelnya," Maffis said as they crossed beneath the wooden walkway and entered the town.

The buildings in the town were nicely built and designed to look like houses from a popular online fantasy game that Maffis had seen several videos of, but never actually played. The road that ran through the town was a combination of gravel and both regular and mossy cobblestone, giving it a nice texture that was a change from the boring unchanging pure cobblestone or gravel road they had been riding on for the past few days. All of the houses and buildings were connected by grass paths that had been flattened with a shovel.

As they made their way down the street, Maffis could see the residents of the town look out at them through oak and birch fence windows. They did not say anything or come out to greet them, only stared as they moved down the road. _I should have taken my armor off_ , he thought to himself. The multicolored leather he was wearing was the sign of banditry, and with Durgey and Turgle wearing it as well now, they looked like a band of brigands.

At what Maffis believed to be the center of the town, they found that the road connected to a large ring-road that was surrounded and filled with smaller, but highly decorated, buildings, with a large stone tower in its center. Along with the white 'S' banners, the buildings had special banners hanging above their doors; one that resembled a brown rabbit on a green field, a potion vial, an iron sword, and several others that he could not make out. "Ooh! A market! Can we get some stuff, Maffis? I want a swiftness potion and a lucky rabbit's foot and a sword and-"

"We'll see," Maffis said, interrupting Durgey. "I suppose we should do some shop-" he was then interrupted by the sound of several doors opening behind him. He turned around to see players from the houses they had just walked by stepping out of their doors, all holding weapons of some sort. None were wearing armor, but with their numbers he knew they could cause them trouble. He would be safe if he used Ironwill, but he could not defend his party forever. _I really should have taken my armor off_.

"Maffis…" whined both Durgey and Zelnya as the armed players began their approach.

"It's going to be fine," he said and stood off his horse. "Well, this is a nice welcome for four weary travellers," he said once the mobbing residents were in earshot. "Why must our welcome involve weapons, though?"

"This ain't no welcome! This is a illcome! We don't want you here! Only bandits wear armor like that, and we don't take kindly to no bandits!" said a player with a light skin, red hair, and clothes that looked like green overalls, but without any pockets.

"Bandits and bandit hunters," Maffis corrected and he told his companions to get off of their mounts. Zelnya ran and hid behind Turgle's mule. "I am Maffis, a bandit hunter from South Tip. My friends here are seeking refuge as their home was recently destroyed by a bandit army," he said, lumping in the two younger players with Turgle's story. His case was sadder, and he hoped the people would feel more pity for three refugees than for one and two newspawns.

"Likely story!" the player said, waving a stone axe at Maffis. "What proof do you have?"

"Maffis?" said another player, this one had light skin and red hair as well, but her eyes were great green squares and her clothes were a simple outfit of a green shirt and blue jeans. "I've heard that name before, I think. But not for a bandit, or a bandit hunter."

 _No. They can't remember._ It had been nearly one hundred years. If he had thought it even possible the people here would remember his name, he would have never entered Ston and would have taken the long way around through Carrot. "I was once the Count of Melon, so naturally some would know my name." That was the only thing he could be remembered for, or that he wanted to be remembered for.

"You were a count?" asked Durgey, who probably still had no idea what it meant to be a count on this server.

"I'll tell you about it later, Durgey," Maffis said, and tossed his spare stone sword on the ground to show the mob he meant no harm. Ironwill was safely stored in the top right corner of his inventory.

"I feel like it was something else," said the player with large green eyes, "but that must be it. Yes, a count, of course. Count Maffis of Melon, I have heard that before."

"A count?" said the player in green overalls, and he put his stone axe away and crouched in a bow. "Oh, a count. But you're a bandit hunter now? I guess that'd explain your armor, yeah. Sorry about all this. Never can be too careful, ya know. There've been some rumors and stuff about bandits in the north." _North? Are they already in Melon?_

"I'm sorry for this misunderstanding," Maffis said, removing his armor. Turgle took Maffis' lead and took his off as well, but Durgey stayed in his. "The last time I passed through this area there was an inn. Nothing but an inn actually. The Drowning Spider."

"The Drowning Spider, yes, it's our inn. Cobbletown was built around it, but the inn still exists. I can take you to it, if you wish. And I'll pay for all your stays too, to make up for this awful mess," said the green eyed girl.

"We would appreciate that," said Maffis and he could hear Turgle whisper to Durgey and the boy finally took off his armor. Maffis picked up his stone sword and returned it to his hotbar. "I think we could all use a calming rest."

The overalls player took their horses by leads and the girl lead them to the other side of the circle where the Drowning Spider sat, unchanged from the last time Maffis had laid eyes on it. Outside of its door a black banner hung, with red markings at the top that resembled the eyes of a spider. They entered the inn and the girl payed the innkeeper, and left them at the bar.

"Well that was an ordeal," said Maffis, so quiet it was almost silent.

"Ordeal? That was _scary!_ " said Zelnya.

Turgle ordered several bowls of rabbit soup for their group, eating two whole bowls himself, despite obviously not starving. Maffis and Durgey each at one bowl full, but Zelnya did not eat anything until Maffis assured her that they would find the post office in the morning.

"So, were you really a count, Maffis?" Durgey asked again.

"Yeah, were you really? I'm honestly pretty surprised you didn't tell us this," said Turgle. _We've just met this year, you know. It's not like I'm going to tell you my entire life's story_.

"Many years ago, yes. I was Maffis Melon. But I've denounced that name and passed the title onto my dear friend Carsi. She's countess now."

"But why? Isn't a count like a king? But like smaller or something like that?" asked Zelnya.

"If you consider a county a small kingdom, then yes, a count is like a small king," said Maffis. "It was not the life for me. Before I became count I was a soldier in the War of the End, which I do not feel like discussing at the moment. When the war was over, I had nothing left to fight for. King Daggeff came to me and told me of his plan of separating his kingdom into smaller, more easily governable counties, and gave me rule over Melon.

"But I could not stand staying in the same town day after day, year after year. I yearned for battle. Sometimes I would join the guards in defending the town from monsters, though Carsi, who had been my advisor at that time, urged me not to, as that was not an appropriate thing for a count to do. She had been right, of course, so I dropped the title, and gave it to her. After that I was free to fight as I wished, and several years later I found myself at South Tip, signing up with the bandit hunters." That was almost completely true, though he left out some important parts, such as the reason he had went to South Tip.

"But you were like a king!" squealed Durgey. "You could tell people what to do, and they would have to do it!"

"No one _had_ to do anything I told them. They did it because they wanted to, and they trusted my judgement," said Maffis, thinking back to the few times he ever truly used his count powers. "If I had abused my people they would have turned on me. I did what was needed, planned for festivals, for building, that sort of thing. And to someone who was used to fighting and adventuring all the time, it was boring."

"I understand that," said Turgle, drinking some potion. The swirls floating off his body told him that it was a potion of leaping, but he did not know what Turgle would need it for. "Sometimes I would get bored tending my inn back in Shorebreeze, but I was never the adventuring type, so I never left. But I think I'll go on a little adventure now, and by little, I mean just around town," he said and jumped from the bar, out the door of the inn, and Maffis could see him bouncing outside the inn through the windows.

"Ooh! I wanna do that too!" said Durgey, and Zelnya joined him in drinking the rabbit foot infused water. They both left Maffis at the inn, bouncing out the door like rabbits.

Maffis, alone, sighed and went to find his room. He found it on the second floor of the inn, a small two by six cell with a chest at the foot of a bed. He sighed again and laid down in the bed and watched as his screen darkened into nothing but the crosshairs of his cursor. _That girl, she remembered_. _She was so close_. He was alone with his thoughts in the darkness of his screen, until he heard voices on the other side of his wall.

They were whispers, so quiet that he had to hold his breath to make out what they were saying. There were two players from what he could hear, both at an age where their voices were low enough that he could tell they were men. "No, I will not be going back. Binchent's gone mad," whispered one voice. _Binchent?_ Binchent was the Count of Eastip, and once a friend of his.

"You _have_ to. This war is going be be massive! What do you think Ston is gonna do when they find out there's a war? They're not gonna sit back and wait for it to end. They're gonna join? What if they don't side with Eastip? What if they find out you're _from_ Eastip?" whispered the second voice.

"I don't know, I'll run. I'll run to Carrot or to the Bandit Lands. I'll even swim to Sudthrend if I have to. But I'm not going back to Eastip and Binchent's crazy war! If he wants to attack Melon, then that's on him!"

 _Attack Melon_? Now not only did Melon face bandits, but one of their allies was betraying them? He did not believe it, so he remained quiet and stood from his bed, pressing himself as close to the wall of this small room as he could.

"This 'crazy' war is not just going to stop when Melon falls, mate. Think about it. This Holkross guy shows up in Tiport one day, and then suddenly the count decides he's tired of only being count o'er Eastip? Binchent will have all of Sedweest pulled into a war, possibly the entire world will get involved. Haven't you ever heard the name Holkross before? Think about it, mate. Holkross!"

The bandits they had met on the road had told him about Holkross. But they had only been bandits, and bandits were not to be trusted. But they had known him, they had known Ironwill. Simple bandits would not have known about them, unless told by someone who knew him; told by an enemy or an old friend.

"Carsi!" he shouted, bolting from the room and running outside the inn to find his companions. _No, no, no, no, no!_ The name rang in his ears as he ran through the town. _Hokross. Holkross. Holkross. You're dead! You're dead! You're dead!_ "You're dead!" he shouted into the sky.

And then he stopped running and stood still. He was standing on the ring road that was the town's market. Maffis shook his head to clear his thoughts, and then laughed to himself. _He's dead_. Someone was probably just posing as the general, an imitator looking to intimidate people with a powerful name.

 _Wait. Imitator._ The bandits that had attacked Shorebreeze had been wearing grey armor, just as the Deadforce had in their time. He had assumed they were imitators as well. But was it really a coincidence that this bandit force was using their colors, and a leader of the force they were representing suddenly appears to a person of power? It could have been their plan from the start, to start in the south with warring force, and to take part of the north with diplomacy by having someone play the part of Holkross. But there were ways of verifying a player's name, ways that a count like Binchent would know.

 _Caulrin_.

He ran around the ring that was the town's market three times, looking in each of the store windows, before he found Turgle in the shop marked with the rabbit banner. Inside he was talking to the shop owner. "Turgle, we're leaving!" he said, bursting through the shop's door, and before Turgle could reply he left to find the other two.

He found Durgey and Zelnya in the center of the ring at the base of the tower. The girl and the boy were looking up towards the top of the cobblestone structure. "C'mon, you two. We're leaving this town."

"What? Leaving? But you said we were going to stay for a full day! And we didn't get to mail my letter!" cried Zelnya.

"And I didn't get my rabbit's foot!" cried Durgey.

"I've changed my mind, we're leaving now. Durgey, go get on your horse. Zelnya, I'll buy you one," he said, and Durgey did as he was told.

After he had purchased Zelnya a new grey and white spotted horse, Maffis found the stable where their horses had been kept. Durgey was there waiting with Turgle, both on their own mounts. "Are you certain we need to leave, Maffis?" asked Turgle.

"We have to, Turgle." _The world depends on it._


	12. Parner (III)

Around the corner he could see a faint purple glow. Light. The first light he had seen in what felt like days.

The chute had dropped him far below the city, and he had fallen for so long that he thought the pool he had landed in was at the bottom of the world. Daggeff had been waiting for Shul and him, and once they climbed out of the five block deep water hole, the king began leading them down a dark tunnel.

Parner could barely see the king's back in front of him, but it was enough and he followed Daggeff through what he quickly realized was a tight spiral. Every few blocks the walls would turn in and around, and he felt like they were walking in circles, but the eccentricity of the walls continually shrunk so he knew that they were not. After a day or so of marching through the dark, curving tunnel, it began to curve upwards as well as around, and Parner had guessed that wherever Daggeff was leading them was somewhere on the surface of the city. He had been wrong, and as soon as he could hear the sounds of players above him the spiral turned down again and lead them back to the bottom of the world.

Thinking back to it, there had been four voices he had heard before turning back down. Three of the voices had been definite male voices, and one had been higher, possibly a young boy or a girl. Though they had only been whispers, one of the male voices had reminded him of someone he knew. He knew it was unlikely, as there were thousands of players in the city, but it had sounded like Morned. He couldn't help but chuckle at the thought of the sheep farmer searching all over Lazuline for him, possibly worried that he had gotten lost, or worse, but in reality he was with the king on some secret special mission.

Once back on the bottom of the world, they walked for another two days. They finally stopped when they turned around a corner to find the faint glow of a nether portal. Two soldiers were standing on each of the obsidian structure's sides, both wearing all blue armor. But instead of carrying pure blue shields, only the bottom half was blue whilst the upper half was red. "This is why we've been walking in silence for three or whatever days? A stupid nether portal?" said Parner.

"It's not a 'stupid nether portal, Parner. It's the king's nether portal, obviously. And the king has brought us here for a reason, haven't you, Your Highness?" said Shul, his nasally voice sucking the life out of Parner. If he had to hear Shul talk through whatever this mission was, he hoped they would go back to silence.

"Well, obviously. We followed him down an endless hole, then through an endless spiralling tunnel. Of course there is a reason behind it, ya dingus," said Parner. In the short time he had known Shul, he had quickly learned that the king's advisor was more of a suck up than Kivlore had been. Poor Kivlore.

"What I mean is, this portal is probably very important. Is the book on the other side of this portal, Your Highness? Or is there perhaps something else waiting on the other side?"

"The nether is on the other side of it, Shul," said King Daggeff, and Parner had to stifle a "ha". "But I guess the book is too, in a manner of speaking. Caulrin's book is hidden somewhere in the nether, somewhere very deep. From this portal, or rather it's sister in the other dimension, it should be located to the north. Well, what we'll call north. It's difficult to give you a decent direction due to the nature of the nether, since you won't be able to rely on compasses," the king said and tossed a book at Shul's feet.

"Directions," Shul said, reading the title of the book. "These are the directions to the book? 'Leave the portal and head straight until you discover the Blue Flame village. In the village, turn towards the netherrack structure shaped like a wolf and continue until you come to an upside down 'V' in a wall.' Are you sure we can use this to find it?"

"No, I'm not sure of anything," said the king. "The directions in that book can be incredibly vague, despite telling you exactly what to do." Parner scratched his head, not understanding how something can be exact and vague. "The first thing it tells you to do is find the village, sounds easy enough. But the Blue Flame are meant to be a secret, remember? It's true that it's illegal to enter the nether-side boundaries of Lazuline, but illegality does not stop everyone. For that reason the village is hidden, and is barely a village at all. It's more like several netherrack hills on a netherrack plain, easy to hide from players passing through. That's all I can really do to describe it. It's the nether, everything looks the same in there."

"So we're supposed to be on the lookout for something that looks exactly like everything else. Gee, that sounds swell," said Parner, rolling his eyes behind his monitor.

"Look, this is all I can do. But I need that book. Sedweest needs that book. If Holkross comes back from the dead, he's going to raise the nether in the overworld, if you get my meaning. You two are the last hope of Sedweest," said the king.

"Last hope of Sedweest? Right. So, when we find this book, should I just chuck it in lava? I mean, lava will probably be pretty hard to find in there, but I'm sure I can manage," said Parner.

"No! You must bring the book back to me. It belongs to me, to Sedweest. If the book is destroyed then, well..."

"Well what? You yourself said that it was dangerous. Something about mortality being the foundation of the world. We can't have people running around and dying, knowing that they can be brought back to life without any consequences," said Parner. He didn't really want to destroy the book anyway. If anything, it would make a nice gift to give the countess.

"That's true, it would be terrible if the public learned how to do the ritual. But for… certain people it could be put to good use. People like counts and lords and… kings," said the king.

"Oh, so people like you then?"

"Parner! You shouldn't go and make accusations like that! This is _King_ Daggeff you're speaking too, not your lowly countess!" Shul said and Parner growled at him. Carsi was not lowly.

"Well he has a point, Shul. I do want the book for myself. No point in hiding that. I'm the king. I am the master and chief of Sedweest," said King Daggeff, backing up from the portal. "People know my name, and they respect it. They do what I ask them, because they know it's for the greater good. With this war coming, which is inevitable I fear, I will more than likely die. I have this armor, and it is very good armor, but my fighting skills will not make up for it. I'm not the best at video games.

"So if, and when, I am killed, the realm will go into chaos. Most likely the counties will break apart, and not only will we have Holkross' army to deal with, but civil war between the counts. But, if I am returned to life, well, I can quell all of that, and our people can stand together under my name, and maybe stand a chance against Holkross."

Parner thought about that for a moment. When he had first stepped into King Daggeff's throne room, he had thought the player was just some lucky guy that had somehow tricked everyone into listening to him. But he was right, people did respect him. Carsi respected him, and whenever she would return from councils in Lazuline, she would talk about how brilliant he was, or how generous he was, and go on and on about how good of a leader he was. Parner could not see that for himself, and for all he knew it could be all false. But people believed it. And if their belief in him could unite them under a banner, then maybe it was better if he was alive.

"Right, then I guess I'll bring the book back to you. If we end up finding it, that is."

"It really is an honor that you chose us, Your Majesty," nosed Shul.

"I know you will do me well, Shul," said King Daggeff before looking to Parner. "I don't know you as well Captain Parner, but if Countess Carsi chose you to lead her soldiers, then I have faith in you. Just don't make me regret choosing you."

"I'll try not to, I guess," said Parner and King Daggeff took his leave, vanishing behind the curving wall. "Okay then, you first mate," he said once the king was out of earshot.

"But of course," Shul said as he stepped into the swirling purple magic that filled the obsidian frame. "As the leader of this mission it is my duty to take the first steps," he said just before popping out of existence in the overworld dimension.

"Wait, what?" Parner ran into the portal and stood in the swirls. His screen became a nauseating mess of purple shades mixed with the dark black of the tunnel. After a quick loading screen the black was replaced with the burgundy red of the nether. Shul was standing just on the other side. "What do you mean 'you're the leader'? Daggeff never said either of us was in charge!"

Shul held out the book that Daggeff had given him and Parner knew exactly what the king's worm was going to say. "He may not have said it with his voice, but he gave _me_ the directions. You can't lead us to Caulrin's book without the directions, and if you can't lead then you can't be the leader!"

"Well maybe I should get the directions. I'm a born leader, you know. Carsi picked me to be captain over some very tough competition. This one guy, Beyos was his name, was like insanely good at combat and stuff like that. I was sure she was gonna give him the job. But no, she gave it to me," said Parner, leaving out the part where Carsi had a crush on him. He didn't want Shul to think that had influenced her decision. Well, it probably did, but he still believed he was more capable than Beyos.

"I'm the King's advisor, he trusts me with the important documents and irreplaceable items. King Daggeff meant for me to have the book, and so the book will stay with me," said Shul as he stared at the book.

Parner sighed and the two soldiers that had been standing on the overworld side appeared on the other side. "Oh great are these guys coming with us too? Great, more people for Shul to boss around!"

"No, we are staying here," said one of the soldiers. He approached Parner and tossed him a half stack of cooked fish and then gave Shul a full stack of apples. "The king wanted us to make sure you were well prepared for your quest, and to get rid of this thing," he said and began punching the obsidian portal with his fist. The other Blue Flame, as that was what Parner assumed they were due to their shields and their relation to nether portals, began to punch the other side of the portal as well, and Parner realized that they meant to destroy the portal with nothing but their fists.

"Why are you guys doing that? It's going to take a year without proper tools," said Parner.

"They need to hide it so no traveller accidentally stumbles across it and finds the secret tunnels," said Shul. "They are the Blue Flame, if you were wondering. Sworn to defend the nether-side of Lazuline City," he said, confirming what he already thought. But that did not answer why they weren't using pickaxes. Surely Daggeff had materials to give his secret soldiers, especially for something like this.

"Well, it's going to take them forever, so let's get going. If you're going to lead the way, then get to leading," Parner told Shul.

"Fine, fine. We'll need to find the Blue Flame village first, that's what the book said. This way," said Shul and he started off in the same direction they had exited the portal from.

The area the portal had spawned in was a low ceilinged netherrack cavern with two exits, both lined up with the portal. The walls were also very close to the portal, making it a tight room. Both exits were small holes in the cavern wall, only big enough for a player to squeeze through, making it an easy place to keep secret.

Shul lead them out their exit onto a wide netherrack plain. Patches of fire dotted the landscape and lava fell from the high ceiling to spread across the floor. Parner could hear a ghast crying in the distance, but he could not see it anywhere. He stayed as far from the fires and pooling lava as he could, just in case the ghast decided to stop lurking in the gloomy red mist of the unrendered nether and blast him into them.

Travelling across the nether was much different than in Sedweest. Not only because of the fire and lava and the fear of giant flying ghost monsters, but also because it was much more diverse than the overworld-side plains. Everything looked very similar here, that was true, but the similar things varied.

The overworld had been created, rather than generated, by the server owner. He had made the majority of Sedweest a dull plain only broken up by occasional rivers and peppered trees. This nether plain had lava falls, gravel hills and wide soulsand stretches, colored with mushrooms and the shiny golden swords of zombie pigmen.

He had never been to the nether on the server before. The dimension looked much the same as a regular nether in a regular Minecraft world. He guessed that the server owner had gotten tired of terraforming after making the overworld and let the nether generate on its own.

As they crossed the plain he could not help but count the pigmen they passed. Ten, thirty, sixty-five. He thought about the sword King Daggeff had given him, and about how well the enchantment would do against the snorting zombies. There had once been gold farmers in Melon that would go into the nether and kill pigmen for their nuggets. But once Carsi came to power in the county she had banned it due to too many of the farmers being killed on the job. If Parner attacked them here and now, wearing only leather armor, he would surely die. He decided against it and kept on with Shul.

His trip to Lazuline with Morned had been incredibly dull. The unchanging scenery had played a part in that, though it was mostly due to his travelling partner. The times the sheep farmer hadn't been silent, which had been few, he had tried to tell Parner about his sheep, and about how he raised them, separated them, and how he decided which color to shear and slaughter. His talk had been duller than the plains, and when Parner had tried to talk about things he wanted to discuss, like innovative goods transportation, Morned had shushed him. But now Parner longed for those shushes and for Morned's sheepish speeches, the King's worm was even duller than all of that.

"There, do you see that?" asked Shul after they had been walking for nearly half an overworld day. Ahead of them was more netherrack, but instead of a flat expanse like they had been seeing, there were several medium sized bumps. They were barely noticeable and looked normal in their surroundings. If they had not been looking for something like it, they would not have noticed it. "The village, do you think?"

"Duh, what else could it be?" said Parner and he ran off towards the bumps, leaving Shul to chase after him. He came to the side of one of the netherrack bumps. There was no door that he could find, or anything to indicate it was a house or something normally found in a village. Shul went to another bump on the other side the grouping.

When he began to punch a block at the top to make his own entrance, Shul called to him from another one of the bumps. "Parner, come here! It looks like this one was hit by a ghast or something!" he said and Parner ventured over, leaving his bump intact.

A large hole was taken out of the side of Shul's bump, irregular and obviously made by some sort of explosion rather than by tool or fist. The bump was hollow on the inside and decorated like a house with all the furniture, minus a real bed, which was replaced with two pieces of red wool and one white for the pillow.

It was most certainly a house, meaning that they were most certainly in the Blue Flame village. "Hello? Any Blue Flamers around?" called Parner. No one answered, not that he had expected them to anyway. "Well, did they all log off or what?"

They decided to check another one of the bumps, and when they broke inside they found it much the same as the house with the hole blown out of it. "There's no one in this one either," said Shul. "If they would have just logged off, their characters would be standing still. They must've left this place, maybe to sleep in the overworld or something like that." Without real beds, as beds exploded when slept on in the nether, the Blue Flame would need to return to the other dimension to rest. For now it seemed the village was abandoned.

But if they had all gone back to the overworld to rest, why was one of the houses broken into? A ghast would have no reason to attack netherrack blocks unless they were shooting their fireballs at a player. And was it really smart for everyone in the town to leave it at once? He had counted twelve bumps at arrival, surely at least half of the Blue Flame should have stayed behind to keep watch.

"This is the village. So where's the statue?"

"Statue?" Asked Parner, nearly forgetting the reason they were in the village in the first place. He had returned to the opened house and was searching through the chest, which did not yield much more than a bit of food and two gold nuggets.

"Are you stealing from the Blue Flame?" asked Shul and Parner put the gold back. They wouldn't miss the food. "Whatever. We're looking for a netherrack structure in the shape of a wolf. Whether it looks like a wolf from the game or a real wolf, I do not know. But hopefully it'll stand out to us."

"It'll be easy to spot a generic netherrack thing in the middle of a bunch of netherrack things, I'm sure," said Parner. But despite his sarcasm, it was not difficult at all, and within a few minutes they found a rather large structure in the shape of a wolf's head with an open jaw. They carried on past it and soon it vanished behind them in the red gloom of the fiery dimension.

And then five players popped out of the gloom, all wearing grey armor.


	13. Morned (III)

It was not until the dark green melon fields of Rind loaded into his view that he felt any relief. Through their entire walk to the town after meeting with the Eastip soldiers, Morned had felt uneasy, like he was being followed or that something bad was coming for him. But now he was home, or at the very least, in his home county.

"Rind's a nice enough town, it'll be a good place for a rest," said Morned to the group, but more to Amilite than anyone else. "But just wait 'til we get to Melon Town. From a distance it'll be a great woolly rainbow. That's thanks to yours truly and my sheep farms. When we get there I can get you as much of any color wool you want to build your stall. I'm sure the countess will let you build one in town if you would rather stay there. Pen Street is mostly empty, it'd be as good a place as any." He would have to shear many more sheep to get the wool she would need, if she did not want only blue. Parner had all the other colors they had brought to Lazuline, and Morned did not know where he was.

"As long as there's an inn so I can log off for a few minutes to visit the bog, I'm fine with whatever this town's like," said dour Unfrenden.

"And I'd like to run out and get a bite to eat. Won't take me long, only like half an hour. You guys don't mind waiting around for a few days, do you?" said Turfden.

"We can, if there is still an inn," said Amilite.

"There is an inn. The Hard Green Skin," said Morned, but then realized what the spleef master meant as more of the town appeared in front of him. "No!" He cried and rushed into Rind.

The town, which had once been a decent, if not simple looking town, was a disaster. Nearly half of the wooden roofs were missing, and the ones made out of stone had lava pouring from their tops. Blocks of obsidian were randomly placed on the buildings, road, and some even floated in midair. Even the church had not been left untouched, and the once beautiful temple was nothing now but a few cobblestone columns and floating blocks of clear and red glass.

 _What happened here?_ His thoughts immediately jumped to the soldiers they had met outside of Lazuline City. Something about them had seemed off, something about the way they spoke to them. But they were soldiers. Eastip soldiers. Eastip was a friend of Melon. It had to have been bandits or the same players that had attacked Lazuline.

"Morned!" Amilite called to him, catching up. "Are you okay?"

No, he wasn't okay. He was furious. Lazuline had been attacked, and now Rind was almost destroyed, both when he had been away from Melon Town and his sheep and Carsi. And he had been useless. But he tried to hide his anger, he did not want Amilite to see him as a hothead. "I knew people here. We weren't friends, or anything like that, but I still liked them. They were good people," he said and walked further into the town.

The town had not been entirely decimated. Some players were still around, most that he could see were repairing the town the best they could. As he passed one broken house, a player called from the flaming rooftop. He did not call Morned by his name, only "sheep farmer". "Who did this?" he asked the player just as they destroyed the lava source with a cobblestone block.

"I'd tell ya, but I'm not sure if ya would believe me. I don't want to believe it, yet I saw it with my own eyes," he said and climbed down from the roof after the lava had started to disperse. "It's not like we had no soldiers here, we had plenty. Sargent Bekstone was one of the best soldiers I had ever seen on this server, maybe the best fighter I had ever seen in the game. But the guys who did this were better soldiers, it would seem. Bekstone and his men didn't stand no chance," the player said sadly. He had a deep twang in his voice that made Morned picture him as an old bearded man, despite his skin looking like a clean-shaven boy.

"What soldiers did this?" he asked the Rind man. The grey armored players had been soldiers of some kind, though he did not know what realm dressed their soldiers in all grey, apart from the mythical army of the Enderlord. It had to have been them.

"They were from Eastip. Blue and cyan," the player said and all Morned could think was _I knew it_. Deep down he had known it. He had wanted it to be the grey-armored thugs, but Jelfling's voice had left too much of a bad taste on his mind. "We welcomed them in at first. They were Eastip soldiers, nothin' odd about them passin' through. Probably on their way to see the king on some mission from their count. Countess Carsi sometimes sends our own men to see Daggeff, so you can see why we thought they didn't mean no harm.

"But they did mean harm. They blew up nearly a quarter of the town, and burnt another quarter. Some of it was saved, but only because the Eastipers got bored, I think. We didn't put up much o' a fight once our soldiers were dead. So they just left us with fire and obsidian and the heads of our friends."

"Eastip? Why would they do this?" asked Morned.

"They told us why, that knight of theirs did. Once they were in the town, he told us a story of Melon soldiers attacking Eastip towns. He said that Count Binchent had asked Carsi to stop several times or he'd be forced to declare war, but the attacks did not stop, so this was Eastip's revenge."

"That's a lie! Surely! Melon would never attack Eastip, at least not without Carsi's consent! Someone must be doing this without the countess' orders!" said Morned. Carsi was the most peace loving player he had ever met. She did not even like having animals killed for food in the game, despite that being their main purpose for being there. She would never have acted violently. "What if they weren't Eastip soldiers in truth. What if they were in disguise?"

"You're thinking they were the players that attacked Lazuline then?" said Amilite. "Sir Jelfling is a true knight, no matter how ruthless he may be. I can believe he'd join with Eastip if he thought they had a righteous cause, but he would never join a band of thugs like those grey-armored players seemed to be. Morned, I think they had to have been from Eastip. Real Eastip soldiers."

He did not want to believe she was right, no matter how beautiful her voice was. Morned did not know the Icy Death, he had only heard about him a few times, overhearing stories from traders in Melon Town. Amilite had likely learned all she knew about him similarly from her spleef stall in the faire quarter. How did she know for certain he was that honorable? He certainly didn't, and it was easier to believe him joining with ruthless bandits pretending to be soldiers than actual soldiers.

Morned gritted his teeth and turned to the Rind man. "So, what now? Has Carsi sent you any reinforcements? Has Carsi sent you anything?"

"We ain't heard nothing from Melon Town at all. Likely they've been attacked too, and have nothin' to spare. Rind's on 'er own, I'm afraid." Tiport was to the southeast of Melon Town, and Rind to her northwest. The most direct route to Lazuline City would take the Eastipers past both the towns. The player was likely right. "So now we're just workin' on 's all we can do, really. Though, with most of our builders dead or fled, it's been difficult. Well, not difficult to build, just to match the quality that the ol' builders set. Back in the early years of Rind we hired builders from all over the world to help us, even Sargent Beyos himself lent a hand here, at Count Maffis' command."

 _Beyos?_ Morned knew that Beyos had played a large part in the construction of Melon Town itself, but he had never heard of him building elsewhere. But to be honest, he didn't know much about the builder himself. He had always liked Beyos well enough, he was friendly and easy to talk to, but there had always been a side of him he knew had been hidden away. Even when Kivlore had died, and Morned had sworn to keep to the zombie story, Beyos had refused to tell him about his past and why he would choose to stay in Melon Town when his skills could be used in more glamorous parts of the world.

"Do you really think rebuilding is a good idea now?" asked Amilite. "If this county really is at war, then Eastip will likely attack Rind again. Then all your rebuilding efforts will be for nothing." The woman made sense, of course she did. She had not lead him astray yet. He knew he had to trust her about the Eastip soldiers being Eastip soldiers.

"Yeah,... Maybe you should hold off for awhile. Wait for things to cool down," Morned said.

"Nah, that's not the way to do it. We lost a lot o' good players here. A lot o' friends. Ruins and rubble will be nothing but reminders o' their loss. New buildings and a fresh looking town won't make 'em forget that, but it'll help 'em move on. Keep morale up," the Rind man said, and Morned could agree with that too. "We'll just do our best, build what we can build, ya know."

"A church can help morale. Seeking help from the admins is a good way to boost confidence and hope," Morned said. "If you'd allow me, I'd like to help rebuild it. I helped with the church in Melon Town."

"But what about Melon Town? Don't you want to get home?" asked Amilite. He did want to return to Carsi and his sheep, but seeing the church in the state it was in burned him a little inside. It had been weeks since he'd last visited a church to send his prayers to the admins, something he usually did every day. It gave him comfort, knowing that players of higher power were listening to him, and leading the world. But the players of Rind did not have that, not anymore.

"Amilite, I'm going to stay and help rebuild. Melon Town is where I have my sheep, but all of Melon is my home. I feel I need to help out here," he said, and held out a block of wool. "All I have to build with now is blue wool. Do you have any supplies for me? Wood, stone, glass?"

"Yer, there's a chest in the center of town. Plenty of buildin' materials. If you're sure ya wanna help out, yer more than welcome to stay at the Skin, my own inn, free of charge," the man said.

"I will do that then," said Morned, who then turned to his group. "That's that then, I'm staying. Amilite," he said, looking into the girl's pixel eyes. "Melon Town is a short walk from here, it'll only take a few days. I don't know what kind of state it's in, it might be worse than this place, but Carsi will take you regardless."

"What about me?" asked Unfrenden.

"She'll take both you and Turfden," he assumed. "Tell her that Morned sent you and that I think your games could bring gold into Melon Town. Carsi will like that idea. When I'm done here with the church I'll return home."

"Sounds good to me, this place is a mess," said Unfrenden. "Will this countess of yours let us stay for, you know, free? 'cause I got no gold or anything to pay for an inn."

"I have a little bit, Unfrenden. But it'd only be enough for you and me. Amilite will have to find her own way," said Turfden.

"You can all live in my house for the time being. There's only one bed at the moment, but it's not like there's a lack of wool in the town," said Morned. "But only Amilite can sleep in my bedroom. The rest of you will sleep on the ground floor."

"Or I can stay here, with you," Amilite said to Morned's surprise. It wasn't an unpleasant surprise by any means, but it was unexpected.

"R-really? I mean, that's great! But why, exactly?"

"To help you rebuild, of course," she said with her charming giggle. "I agree with you about the need for morale, and I want to help out. Also, I'm halfways decent at building. You saw my spleef arena, that was my handiwork."

"Well then, is this goodbye?" asked Turfden.

"Yup, it's goodbye. So, see ya then," said Unfrenden and started to walk away.

"Well that's nice. We went through all of that just for him to leave like that," said Morned. "Whatever. It's not like it's goodbye forever, Amilite and I will see you when we get to Melon Town. It'll probably only be a few weeks, at the most a year."

"And with two of us, it'll go a lot faster. So I'm guessing just a few weeks, but it might only be a few days," said Amilite.

Morned and Amilite said their goodbyes to Turfden, and after the player left Rind they began construction on the church.

To start, they tore down the remainder of the church, as Morned could not remember exactly what old building had looked like. They then began laying a foundation of polished granite they had found in the chest the innkeeper had mentioned. Not long after that the church started taking shape with oak log supports at each corner, cobblestone and stone brick walls, and an oak stair roof. Finally Morned and Amilite put in the windows, blue and lime stained glass with a ring of red in the window at the far back of the church. It was a near replica of the church in Melon Town, only more detailed as Morned had learned more about architecture since that construction.

In the end it had only taken them five days to finish the church, much faster than Morned had ever imagined. Without Amilite's help he would have been there forever. He was glad she had stayed with him, and even gladder that she was going to live in Melon Town with him, even if she didn't plan on staying there permanently.

"Well, that's that," said Amilite as she placed the final oak stair, completing the church's roof. "Tomorrow morning, is that when we'll start for Melon Town?"

"Could do," said Morned, climbing up to join her. "But we could wait a few days, it's not like we're in that much of a hurry. I'm sure Carsi has someone tending to my sheep, Turfden and Unfrenden will likely be there in the next day or so, so we should give them time to get adjusted. How about we spend some time here, relax a bit before walking all the way there?"

"I guess we could do that," she said with undismissable doubt in her lovely voice.

"Oi! That's just like you to be found on a church," called a voice from down below. "Is this what's been keeping you from getting home? Carsi's been worried sick!"

Morned crouched over the edge of the church and looked down at the player standing below him. He had a very pale face, balding black hair, and wore what looked like a butcher's apron. "Miner? What in the nether are you doing here?"


	14. Darnilk

"Miner, what in the nether are you doing here?" the player asked as he hung over the side of the roof. The church was different from the last time he had seen it. It was slightly nicer now and resembled Melon Town's, but with greater detail. With the rest of the town looking like a mess of creeper holes and skeleton houses, he assumed that Morned had something to do with the church's design.

"I would say that it wasn't any of your business," Darnilk said to the sheep farmer," but that would be a lie. I'm on a mission from Carsi, an important mission, if you can believe that. She sent me to find you and Parner and bring you back to town." _And Beyos too_.

"Alright, but why're _you_ here? There are like fifty others Carsi could have sent besides you. Enterlan, Hulding, any soldier, even the baker. Why'd she send the _miner_?"

Darnilk had not wanted to leave his mine. It was not a nice place, only a dark series of tunnels with only torches and different stones for decoration. But he felt the most comfortable there, the only people he would ever have to deal with were the higher ranking players in Melon Town, and he could do his job with little interference. Also, he enjoyed the simple tasks in Minecraft like mining.

But when Carsi came to him, he couldn't refuse her. It was Carsi after all, and the countess never groveled like she did then. Darnilk could tell how afraid she was, how truly fearful she was. And then she had made him a knight, the first knight Melon had ever known, he had to accept her quest.

Darnilk looked around at the town, the only building in sight that looked to be completely rebuilt was the church Morned was standing atop of. "I'm guessing you already know, but apparently there's a war going on. Yeah, a war. Count Binchent has gone all crazy or something and is attacking towns and settlements all over the county, probably what happened here."

"Yes, we are aware of that," said a girl standing on the ground in front of the church. Darnilk had not seen her when he walked up. "It was Eastip and the Icy Death that killed the people of this town and set their houses on fire."

Carsi had told him about Sir Jelfling, but hearing it from someone else who knew of it solidified its truth. "Right. So she couldn't really send out soldiers to find you guys, she needs them all in Melon Town for when Binchent's big army shows up. And she needs all the producers in town too, food will be important if they try to starve us out," Darnilk said. "I guess that's why she needs you back, Morned. But the captain is what Carsi is more worried about," he said, assuming it was true. He knew that sometimes Carsi and Parner quarreled, but she would not have promoted him to captain if she did not care about him. Though it was Beyos she really wanted brought back to Melon Town.

"So she sends the miner? Are you sure you didn't just run off the moment you heard an army was coming?" said the sheep farmer.

"Morned, I've not gotten anything substantial from my mine in years. I wouldn't be much use down there when the war comes, so the countess figured I would be more use finding her captain and sheep farmer. It's not like I wanted to come looking for you and Parner. I was just told to do it!"

"So Melon Town hasn't been attacked yet? We can still go there then. You said it has walls, didn't you?" the girl asked Morned.

"Yeah, it's got walls. But our army is pretty rubbish right now. The whole reason I went to Lazuline to sell my wool was to get gold to buy iron. But that plan went into the bin pretty quickly. No iron for Melon Town," Morned said and tossed a stack of blue wool down to Darnilk. It wasn't able to fit in his inventory due to being full of stone and dirt, and stayed spinning on the ground in front of him.

"And that's why we need Parner," Darnilk said. "We need to get the captain back to Melon Town as soon as possible. So get down from that stupid roof and go get him so we can leave!"

Morned looked down at his feet, and then slowly climbed down from the church's roof. "Yeah, about that," the sheep farmer said, looking to the girl and then back to him. "I don't know where Parner is exactly. You see, there was this attack in Lazuline City, and Amilite and I needed to escape, and-"

"Attack on Lazuline City?"

"Yes. Players in grey armor stormed the city. They were defeated, but we did not find out about that until we were away. Sir Jelfling was the one who told us, he was on his way to Lazuline as we were escaping. We didn't know what he had done until we reached Rind," said the girl, who he assumed was this Amilite Morned had mentioned.

"The Icy Death is in Lazuline then?" That was not good. Carsi had thought the most likely place Beyos would have ran too would have been Lazuline City. Darnilk had disagreed with her thought, but had not said anything. She had just made him a knight. But now, even if Beyos was in the city, there was no way he was going there. Sir Jelfling was a monster, and now he was on their enemies side. "Great, that's just great!"

"Jelfling is going to talk to Daggeff, hoping to convince him that Carsi provoked the whole war," Morned said. "He told the people here that our soldiers attacked first. We wouldn't have done that. Carsi wouldn't have ordered that, would she've?"

"No," said Darnilk. Countess Carsi was all business when it came to the server. Her every effort was to benefit Melon and Melon Town. The only time she ever took a break on the server was to play with her wolves. "Jelfling is a dirty liar!"

"Binchent is the liar," said Morned. "He's the one sending Sir Jelfling to do all this."

"Well, why didn't you to go Melon Town and tell Carsi about all this? Seems like a lot of stuff she would've liked to've known."

"I kinda got distracted. Rind needed help with the rebuilding after Jelfling's attack here, so," Morned said. "But we can go now, I guess. Thought I'm not going back to Lazuline to find Parner, if that's your plan. If he's still there, he's just a head most like. Let's just hope he left before the Icy Death got there, if he even survived the initial attack at all."

Darnilk stared at Morned for a moment. Carsi had sent him to retrieve two soldiers, two players that would be useful in defending the town. All he was going to return with now was the sheep farmer, though for some reason she had insisted on searching for him more so than the captain.

He sighed, and turned back towards Melon Town. "Fine, let's get moving then."

"Right now? We're leaving right now? Can't we get things settled first? Get supplies, say our goodbyes, that sort of thing?"

"No," said Darnilk. "We need to leave now. Since we don't have any soldiers with us we need to hurry home. So come on!"

Morned and the girl took their time leaving anyway, and before he knew it, it was dark out. But he was not about to wait through the night to leave, so they left Rind with the moon high in the sky. It would take several days to get to Melon Town, so they would need to walk through the night several more times anyway, so he did not see the need in waiting until the morning.

Darnilk took the lead of the group, with Morned and the girl walking behind him, side-by-side. They did not talk to him much, instead talking to each other, but he did not mind that. He was a knight doing his duty, he wasn't there for social time. But it was annoying listening to Morned try to suck up to the girl. Back in Melon Town he would always try to woo the female residents. Carsi found it ineffective yet charming; Darnilk found it sickening.

Their first day on the road back to Melon Town was just as dull as most of his walk to Rind, only now he had the annoyance of Morned and the girl Amilite talking behind him. The plains of Sedweest were wide and barren and boring. To his north was the Blue River, which he wanted to walk by simply for the sake of having something to look at other than grass, but Amilite would not let him, saying it was a bad idea as their enemies could be using it as fast transport into Lapis.

Their second day was the same as the first, but the third day was dampened by rain. Then not only was their nothing to see, but the skies were grey and monsters still spawned. The rain carried over to the fourth day as well, but broke before noon.

"Maybe the admins took pity on us," Darnilk joked.

"The admins wouldn't mess with the weather for the sake of three travellers, Darnilk," said Morned, obviously not getting the knight's humor. "But I'm glad it's gone. I could hardly hear Amilite over all that rain." Darnilk had been able to hear her over the droning pitter-patter, but he did his best to ignore it.

"We should be close to Melon Town by now, no?" asked the girl.

"No, we've still got a way to go. Though there was a town-ish place in-between Melon Town and Rind, or there was when Parner and I passed through. But that was almost a year ago now, well, maybe not that long, but a long time."

"It's still there, I passed by on my way to Rind. Not a town, but it's something. They didn't have an inn though, so we won't be able to rest there," said Darnilk, though even if they did have an inn he would want to keep moving. He might've reprovisioned, but that would've been all.

Just as a wood and stone structure rendered into Darnilk's view, the sheep farmer raced ahead shouting "Not again!", followed by the girl. When Darnilk arrived at the scene it looked very much the same as what he had found in Rind. "No! No! No! Why don't the admins do anything?"

The hamlet had only been a collection of five buildings, all of which were crude oak log and plank and cobblestone. Carsi had not given the players permission to settle along the road, or at all, but she had not asked them to leave either. Darnilk would have. But now there was no need as there was nothing left of the settlement other than cobblestone skeletons and a few heads.

"The Icy Death's work?" asked Amilite.

"Can't be," said the sheep farmer as he paced around the shells of buildings, picking up the heads. "Darnilk said that this place was still here when he last went through, didn't you?" he asked and Darnilk nodded. "Jelfling is thousands of blocks away from here, and this must've just happened recently. Like days recently."

"Admins," said Amilite.

"Not days," said a player hidden in one of the burned out buildings. He had been hiding underneath a stone staircase behind some bookshelves, the shelves burst into books as he broke his way out. "It was just today, a few minutes ago." Darnilk instantly recognized the player as one of the two he had met on the road to Rind.

"Just now?" asked Darnilk, but his two companions pushed passed him before the player could answer.

"Turfden!" Amilite cried as she ran up to him.

"Mate! What happened? Where's Unfrenden?" asked Morned.

The player pulled a head out of his inventory and presented it to Amilite and Morned. "No!" Amilite screeched. "We should have all travelled together! You two shouldn't have went on without us!"

"Unfrenden… darn it! I shouldn't have volunteered to rebuild the church. I… I'm so sorry," cried Morned. "Are you okay, Turfden? Do you need food or anything?"

"No, I think I'm okay on all of that," the player said, pulling out a loaf of bread and munching on it. "But I don't know what to do now. Do I keep on to Melon Town, or what? I'm worried that I'll run into more of those cyan guys. Now that you guys are here, I'll just follow whatever you do, I guess."

"It happened just now?" Darnilk asked again.

"Yeah, we have to go to Melon Town. It's the only place for us," Morned said, ignoring Darnilk. "Carsi will be there with all of Melon's forces. It'll be the safest place in the county. It's not much farther anyway. You were both _so_ close," he said sadly.

"Do you think we should bury his head? Like, make a grave for him or something?" asked Turfden.

"I think that would be best," said Amilite.

"People!" shouted Darnilk, and the three other players looked to him finally. "Turfden, I'm sorry about Unfriended or whatever, but did you say that the Eastip soldiers were just here, that this attack just happened? That's kind of an important thing for us to know right now, more important than a videogame funeral!"

"There's always time for a funeral," said Morned.

"It was five minutes ago, I think. Maybe ten, but maybe only five. There weren't really many people in this town, so they didn't really have anything to stand up to the soldiers. Unfrenden and I didn't have any weapons or anything, so we tried to hide. I guess I was just a better hider, or maybe I was just quieter, I don't know," the player said and Darnilk thought he was about to start crying. "How could they find him and not me? How was I the only one to survive all this?"

"It's a small place, Turfden. There weren't many places the soldiers needed to look to find everyone," said Amilite. "Unfrenden just got unlucky, no need to feel bad about that. You're alive, and we're all going to Melon Town."

"Which, if we actually want to get there on our own feet and not have our heads carried there by someone else's, we should leave now!" Darnilk shouted. "If this all just happened, those soldiers should be close by! We didn't pass them on the road, so they likely weren't heading to Rind. They might just be griefers set on Melon by Eastip, so they could come back at any moment!"

"Er, yeah. We should probably get moving," said Morned, just before an arrow landed in front of his feet. Then another arrow flew passed Amilite's head, and another struck Turfden in the shoulder. "Admins!"

"They're back! They're back!" screamed Turfden and Darnilk turned to see a squad of twenty-some players charging at them in blue and cyan armor. "Run!" he cried and ran in the opposite direction.

"No!" shouted Darnilk. "Not that way, that's toward-" he was interrupted by an arrow striking him as well. Morned and Amilite were already following Turfden, so there was no point in trying to turn them whilst they were being pursued. Darnilk ran after them as the sound of arrows striking the ground around him followed.

They sprinted across the plain, dodging arrows as they could, though an arrow would hit one of them every so often. Morned had been hit twice and Turfden had been hit at least three times, though Darnilk had been running backwards for some of their run so it could have been more. But he could not run backwards the entire time, as it was difficult to sprint and look behind him at the same time. He knew where they were heading anyway; north, towards the river, and beyond that, the Forest.

Soon enough the blue line of the river appeared in front of them and Morned began to jump as he ran, pushing him faster. Darnilk and the other two followed suit and jumped into the water. The server's rivers were not like the rivers in a normal Minecraft world, they were created by the server's owner, so they were much wider and had a current to them. The group pushed their way through the water, all the while the arrows rained down on them. And Turfden was hit again, and his body exploded into a puff of items.

"Turfden!" Amilite and Morned cried. But there was no time to swim to his remains, and they were forced to carry on across the river.

When they reached the other side of the fifty block gap, Darnilk stopped and looked back. The soldiers were stopped on the bank, still shooting arrows at them. With the cobble and dirt and random blocks he had collected on the way to Rind, he quickly began making a wall to block the arrows, and Morned joined him with wool after he realized what the miner was doing.

"They're not crossing," said Amilite from behind their terribly built wall. "I don't think they're even going to bother. They just killed Turfden and now they're not going to finish us." The sadness was evident in the girl's voice. "Turfden. Unfrenden. They weren't even from Melon, why'd they have to die?"

Darnilk watched the soldiers turn around and leave, and he sighed in relief. He looked down the river, Turfden's remains had likely been taken by the current; heads dropped in water rather than being placed like they were on land. There would be no funeral for either Turfden or Unfrenden now.

"Like the miner said, they were probably griefers. Griefers don't care who they're killing, they're just there for the fun of it," the sheep farmer said, tearing down his wool. "So, now what? Crossing back over the river would be a bad idea if you ask me. Do we follow it on this side until we get closer to Melon Town?"

"Morned, you've seen two squads of Eastip soldiers in Melon now. Two different squads. I'm going to guess from those that Binchent has many more all over to pillage and wreak havok. We need to get out of Melon," Darnilk said as he looked to the north. "The Forest King doesn't hate Melon at the moment, or at least he has been acting friendly for the past few years. It might be a good idea to run through the forest, then once we're north of the town, run down. We could also get a good amount of wood there, get some basic tools and weapons. There might even be iron in the ground under the forest, they never were an underground people."

Amilite agreed with him and then so did Morned, and they raced northward several days until they reached the dark green and brown wall that was the North Forest of Sedweest. And there, just at the edge of the forest, was a glowing purple and black portal to the nether.

"Great, a nether portal. I bet that's how they're all getting around!" said Morned. "That's how the grey-armored guys got into Lazuline, and if they're working with Eastip, then surely they'd be using the same techniques. The forest is probably crawling with Eastip by now!"

Darnilk studied the portal and looked deep into the forest behind it. "Yes, and that's why we're going into the nether."


	15. Parner (IV)

"Can you see them?" Parner whispered to Shul, looking out into the deep red of the lava ocean outside of their hiding spot. It seemed to go on forever, the other side was completely out of sight.

"Yes," said the king's worm as he peered out the fenced window of the Nether fortress. "They're several levels down. They've lost us."

"Good," said Parner.

The Deadforce had chased them through the Nether for what felt like ten days. They never gained on Parner and Shul, but they never lost ground either. Parner saw that several of them had bows in their hands, but they never shot arrows at them, only followed them at a constant pace.

They tried several times to lose the grey soldiers; they tried jumping down a crevasse and then doubling back on themselves beneath the coming army, nerdpoling up to a high shelf and then tunnelling through a wall with Parner blocking it up as they went, and even attacking a horde of pigmen in hopes that it would slow down the soldiers behind them for long enough that they could escape, though that had left Parner with only a heart of health and he barely escaped the monsters with his life.

But none of that had worked. Each time they thought the soldiers had lost track and interest in them, but a few minutes later they would be found again. The Deadforce was everywhere in the Nether. For an army of the lord of the End, they had a strong presence in this fiery dimension.

When they spotted a large fortress in the gloom, they made for it as their final chance. It was filled with blazes and magma cubes and wither skeletons, but they were able to get through to the seventh level with a majority of their hearts. Shul had secured a small room with a window for them, and now they were waiting for their pursuers to leave.

Parner saw a flash of grey through a window on the second level. "No, they've not given up yet." Parner's heart was racing. They would find their little room sooner or later. "Shul, I think we need to get out of here."

Shul grunted before speaking. "I know we do. I hate it, but I know it. But what are we supposed to do? The book says that the next landmark is on the other side of that lava ocean, and we need to get past _them_ to get past _it_."

"Well, we need to get going quick. How're we supposed to get to the other side? Is there a ridge cut out for us? A tunnel?" asked Parner. He was getting antsy. Any second now the Deadforce could break through their wall and obliterate them. He nearly wanted to log off and hope for the best, but he knew the best would be the Deadforce leaving their heads on the ground and not tossing them into the lava.

"It says nothing about a tunnel or a ridge or even a bloody gondola to ferry us across. 'Cross the lava ocean when you come across it from the seven story fortress. On the other side you will find a netherrack mountain that reaches the ceiling.' That's all we've got!" the worm nearly shouted and the captain shushed him. "Sorry, sorry. This book is just so frustrating. I'm Daggeff's advisor and bookkeeper, and yet I can't even follow this book that he's given me! Whoever wrote it is just awful at giving directions. If I ever meet this… Thaylorn, I'll be sure to give him a piece of my mind!"

"Okay, okay. Calm down, Shul. It says to cross the ocean?" he asked, looking out into the red misty abyss that laid on the other side of the fiery sea. What he was about to suggest was incredibly dangerous, and he knew that Shul would not like it. But it would be dangerous for the Deadforce as well. "Then let's cross it."

"Cr-Cross it? Admins, are you mad, Melon?"

"Only a little bit, worm. But I'm serious about crossing it," Parner said and held out a block of cyan wool. "We'll build a bridge."

"Melon, are you not aware of which blocks are flammable in this game? They relate to real life pretty well, so it's not that difficult to remember!"

"Shul, be quietter! If they hear us, it won't matter if we burn in the lava or not! Now, listen to me. Yes, wool is flammable, of course it is. But that's the point!" he said and Shul was finally silent. He pictured him behind his computer screen with his head tilted in inquiry. "We _want_ it to burn. Then the Deadforce won't follow us, or if they do, they'll be more likely to fall in the lava than us. The blocks behind us will have longer to catch fire."

"That isn't how the game works, Parner. Fire works in ticks, each tick has a chance of fire jumping to another block. It's the same thing that makes crops and trees grow. If we build wool directly on top of the lava, there's a chance of the block you're placing instantly catching fire!"

He had no idea what ticks were, nor did he care, but he did understand the risk of fires starting below their feet. "Shul, it's either that, or we die here. Don't you want to complete this quest for the king?" he said. _Now I've got him_.

Shul grunted again. "Fine. I see your point, Parner. But how are we going to get down to the the ocean to bridge across?" Shul asked Parner began punching the netherbrick block below him. "Digging straight down? Well, I guess we already know what's below us. More fortress and the Deadforce. Fine."

Parner punched his way down to the sixth level, then the fifth, and fourth and so on, stopping at every little footstep, whisper, and ghast cry. Shul was right beside him, punching his own way down. Eventually they made it below the first level of the fortress, and above them they could hear nothing but the rattling of skeleton bones.

"They must be higher up," Shul whispered and Parner nodded.

They made their way out from under the fortress, punching out into the open Nether air. The Deadforce was nowhere to be seen, most likely hidden somewhere high up in the fortress. Parner made for the lava ocean, and when he reached the edge, he turned back towards the Nether fortress and crouched. "Well, Shul, let's get moving," he said as he saw grey-armoured faces peering down at him from the fourth level.

"Right, right! Start laying the wool before they notice us!"

"Too late!" he said and started to place the blocks of wool. He placed them as quickly as possible, but the crouch-walking was slow, and he was only twenty blocks out by the time he saw the Deadforce flash through the windows of the second level. Maybe this wasn't such a great idea after all.

"This'd better not get me killed, Melon!" Shul shouted, watching behind at the soldiers making their way down the nether brick structure. "This is way too dangerous! Try making it two blocks wide, else I might fall in!" said the worm. Parner had thought about making it two-blocks-wide from the beginning, but when he saw that the Deadforce had noticed them, he had panicked and started out with only a one-wide bridge.

"No! They're almost here! Quickly, Parner, quickly!" said the worm moments later as the grey soldiers were a mere thirty blocks from the bridge. And then Parner watched as a wool ten blocks back caught fire, and quickly began to spread backwards towards the land. "What? It's on fire! They're not following! I think your plan is actually working, Melon!"

"Of course it's working. It's _my_ plan," he said, finally feeling safe enough to take the time and start the two-block-wide bridge. He tossed a stack of lime green wool on the bridge and Shul picked it up. "Build it higher too! Then they can't shoot at us!"

Shul did as Parner said and soon they were two hundred or more blocks out into the lava. Parner could not see behind him as he crouch-placed, so he had no idea how close to the supposed mountain he was. All he did know was that, for now anyway, they had escaped the Deadforce.

Shul stopped his building and turned to walk forwards, towards Parner and the other shore. "There it is Parner! I can see the mountain!" the king's worm said in his nasally voice.

Parner sighed in relief, knowing that he would soon be able to uncrouch. Holding shift for this long was starting to make his hand cramp. He stood up and turned around to get a look for himself. "What? No, that's not close! It's still going to take forever to get there!" The mountain was visible now, but it was still near two hundred blocks away, one hundred and fifty at the very least. "I think we should maybe take a bit of a break. Just to let my fingers rest."

"We can't do that, Melon. The Deadforce might catch up to us if we stop," complained Shul.

"They aren't even following us anymore. We're safe, so let's rest," he said.

 _Clunk-chi. Clunk-chi. Clunk-chi._

"Wait, what is that?" asked Parner, hearing a familiar noise that seemed to be growing louder. _Pistons_? It was a strange sound to hear in the nether, especially on a server like this. Had someone made some redstone contraption in this terrible place?

"Parner, look! Up in the sky!" Shul said and Parner looked up. There was no sky, of course, the nether had a ceiling.

"What exactly am I look-" and then he saw it. A platform was moving towards them, high above the bubbling orange and red ocean. It was an engine of redstone and slime and pistons, all pushing and pulling each other to move through the air like a flying carpet. And atop the platform were three boats, each with a grey soldier sitting inside. "Shul…"

"Start building! I'll try to build a wall on the left side! Go! Go!" he screamed and Parner started to panic-place. He was moving so quickly that the game registered his movement backwards before a block of wool was placed, dropping him into the lava, but then instantly warping him back up.

The drop terrified him, it had only been an instant, but his time in the lava had felt like minutes before the game rectified its mistake. The scare had set his heart into a fury, which powered his panic-placing even more. It was making him place between one or three blocks at a time, sometimes widening the bridge more than two blocks. This made Shul's job easier, but also more dangerous if Parner missed a block in his panic, leaving the bridge only one wide.

"Calm down Parner!" shouted Shul. Parner couldn't calm down. Redstone platforms were incredibly slow, only moving as fast as a redstone pulse. But it was keeping up with Parner and Shul easily. "We're almost there, Parner! Almost!"

Parner didn't look back to check. The last time Shul had told him they were nearly there, he had turned to find a massive gap between them. But since then he had used two stacks of wool, so maybe now they were _truly_ almost there.

He built and he built, and all-the-while the _clunk-chi clunk-chi clunk-chi_ of the pistons kept on with him. Redstone platforms were known to be slow, but it was having no trouble keeping up with Parner's bridge. The three soldiers on the platform were holding bows, but were holding their fire. _Why don't you shoot us_?

And then Parner could not move back anymore, and instead of placing a block below him, he placed a block in front of him, nearly making Shul turn off into the lava. In his periphery he could see the black and red and purple of netherrack, but in in forward vision he could see the platform docking between two obsidian blocks floating in the sky. They got out of their boats and jumped onto a netherrack ledge and began running across it.

Parner looked behind him and saw that he was up against a mountain of netherrack, a gentle incline that could easily be climbed. Nearly halfway up the mountain he could see a squared cavern light with torches, obviously player-made. "We're here! Get moving, Shul! You're the leader, after all!" he said, suspecting a trap up at the top. The Deadforce were still running near the top of the world and did not seem to be coming for them, but Parner did not trust them anymore than griefer in a TNT house.

The mountain's slope was gradual, a natural staircase that made it easy for them to climb. After only seventy or so short jumps, Shul made it to the cavern, with Parner shortly behind. The king's worm ran ahead, but Parner did not move so quick. He took his wool and sealed the entrance behind him a few blocks thick, just to be safe.

When Shul made it to the other side of the tunnel Parner joined him, finding him staring up at the ceiling. Above them the three Deadforce soldiers stood, drawn bows in hand, ready to fire. One of the soldier's skin looked to have a smirk on its face, a sly grin that fit a bloodthirsty murderer perfectly. Parner looked behind him at the wool he had placed, and regretted it. Now they were stuck there, between his wall and the Deadforce.

The soldiers were only ten blocks away, more than close enough to speak to, and too close to run from. "Okay, you got us. So, are you going to shoot us, or what?" he asked them, mainly directing his question at the smirking soldier.

"Should do," said the smirking soldier. "But I'm gonna be honest, I don't think I can do it. Not after all the runnin' you two put us through. Buildin' a bridge of wool across lava? That takes guts. Like, a lot of guts." The soldier's voice was soft, yet strong, almost like it was just developing into an adult voice. Parner guessed that he was in his early teens.

"So, you aren't going to kill us then?" asked Shul.

"Not as long as you drop that little book Daggeff gave you," he said, and without question, Shul tossed the book on the ground below him.

"Oh, okay. Wow," said Parner, thinking it odd that Shul, the worm that was so devoted to the king, would toss his directions down without second thought. "So, why exactly don't you think you could kill us?"

"We could kill _him_ ," laughed the soldier. "But not you. We know it was you that made the plan to cross the lava that way. We know that you were forced to come in here, on King Daggeff's little quest." One of the soldiers jumped down to Parner's level and picked up the book. "Go ahead, Alemfy," the smirking soldier said and the other threw the book down the mountain into the ocean. Parner heard it hiss as it burnt.

"Daggeff, forgive me," said the worm.

"Right. So you knew why I was in the nether right?" he asked and the smirking soldier nodded. "Well, that book that you guys just burnt there was the directions to that magic book thing the King's after. So, that's lost now. Good job."

"Those were the directions to Caulrin's book? You mean the book that was found near fifty years ago? The one used to bring Lord Holkross back?" the soldier asked and the two others laughed. "What a shame."

"Okay. So then this entire quest has been a waste of my time, and probably my life?"

"I wouldn't say that. Like I said, I don't have it in me to kill you. If anything, I'd like to invite you into Lord Holkross' service, we could use people like you. So, what'ya say? Join the Deadforce?"

"No thanks, just kill me please."

"Parner! Don't say that! I mean, I don't want to join them either, but don't just say that!" cried Shul.

"You weren't invited anyways, Dingus. Only me."

The soldiers looked at each other,. They put their bows away and the two others left the smirking soldier alone with Parner and Shul. "I'm gonna let you live, buddy. Because someday I think you'll change your mind. I think you'll see just how strong the Deadforce is, and you'll jump at the next chance to join you get. So, until then, adios!"

The soldier left. Shul looked down into the lava where the book had dropped, but of course, it was burnt and deleted from the game. The directions were gone, not that they were useful in finding Caulrin's book anymore, but he could have used it to backtrack back to the Lazuline portal.

After a minute or so of standing, wondering what to do next, the Melon captain and the king's worm began walking in no particular direction for no particular reason. They walked up a hill, then across a soulsand plain, then jumped over a skinny lava river. They walked and walked and walked. The nether was so empty. For a server with thousands and thousands of players one would assume that some of them would try to build in the nether, but none did.

They walked for days and days. He was beginning to grow low on food, his thirst meter was nearly depleted to nothing, and his real life energy was dwindling. There was nothing in the nether to save him, he could not even log off or he would die of starvation or dehydration. This quest had killed him.

And then, just over one hundred blocks ahead of him, a nether portal popped into existence at the top of a gravel hill. And out of it appeared three players, two that he instantly recognized; a miner and a sheep farmer.


End file.
